Paul Ryan Is No Friend to Banks: BankThink

When bankers heard that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, most likely cheered the news. The Wisconsin congressman is, after all, the Capitol Hill antithesis of Barney Frank. He's the Republicans' standard-bearer for limited government in all its forms and has gone into greater depth than anyone else in his party in laying out a plan for limiting it.

Given the mountain of regulations that bankers are struggling to digest under Dodd-Frank (which Ryan voted against), that message is undoubtedly music to the ears of many financiers. It also explains why Ryan has had strong financial backing from banking and insurance lobbyists as a Wisconsin congressman and head of the House Budget Committee.

Yet for bankers there's a lot about Ryan's selection to dislike. On the fringe, for those who believe healthy banks have suffered for the sins of their irresponsible, bailed-out brethren, there's Ryan's grudging support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. In explaining his backing for Tarp, even as two-thirds of his Republican colleagues initially rejected it, Ryan argued that if the financial system had been permitted to collapse in 2008, "we would have had a big-government agenda sweeping through this country so fast that we wouldn't have recovered from it."

The Jamie Dimons of the world will be no more thrilled by Ryan's support for a Volcker Rule that effectively resurrects Glass-Steagall.

For the full BankThink piece see "Why Paul Ryan Is Bad News for Bankers"