Pub. 13 2016 Issue 1

O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G N E W M E X I C O R E A L I Z E D R E A M S Spring • 2016 11 Time for Political Muscle-Building Y ou know that when Congress turns our industry into a piggy bank to pay another industry’s costs and then ignores bankers’ pleas for relief from stifling, ill-fitting regulations, something is very wrong-not just with our political system, but also with our industry’s political firepower. BY ROB NICHOLS, ABA PRESIDENT I’m referring, of course, to the twin in- sults Congress lodged in its waning days of its 2015 session. First, to cover the costs of the five-year highway spending bill, lawmakers chose not to raise the gas tax or find some other related source of funds. Instead it opted to dramatically decrease the dividend the Fed pays member banks with more than $10 billion in assets while simultaneously raiding the Fed’s capital surplus account. Perhaps to soften the blow, they also in- cluded a handful of regulatory relief items than bankers, ABA and the state associa- tions have been advocating, in some cases for years. But the presence of modest reg- ulatory relief in the bill does not make up for the dangerous precedent it set by using banks to pay for highways and bridges. After all, the relief provisions, such as eliminating annual privacy notices for banks that don’t change their policies, had strong bipartisan support. They could have-and should have-passed on their own, not as a quid pro quo. But Congress is so plagued by dysfunc- tion that it can pass little but spending bills. Which leads me to insult number two. After months-years, even-of bank- ers explaining how outdated and poorly tailored rules were choking credit and making things harder for bank custom- ers, leaders in Congress had a chance to do something about it. They could have attached meaningful regulatory relief pro- visions-ones that had already been vetted by both the Senate and House banking committees-to its omnibus spending bill. But they chose not to. While the reasons are many, includ- ing the need to woo votes from staunch defenders of Dodd-Frank, one should be enough to startle all of us into a newway of thinking about political engagement: Con- gress saw no downside in kicking banks around. That has to change. Banking is a hugely consequential in- dustry. We fuel the economy by making loans that help businesses grow, consum- ers prosper and the economy expands. We employ nearly two million men and women who in turn lend their time, tal- ent and leadership to countless civic and charitable causes That means policymak- ers should do more than pause when they hear how laws and rules are harming our ability to do what we do. They should take action. To get Congress to say “yes” in the fu- ture, we have no choice but to build our political muscularity. That means re-eval- uating out industry’s political engage- ment strategy and architecture. It means assessing the effectiveness of our tools, adding resources where needed and en- gaging far more bank employees in our grassroots efforts. And it means being much more deliberate in deciding which lawmakers to support with our dollars and manpower. In short, it means showing Congress that America’s hometown bankers mean busi- ness. Make no mistake, ABA pulled out all the stops with our Pass Regulatory Relief Now campaign. Hundreds of bankers visited with lawmakers last fall when they were in town for state association Washington visits and for various ABA council meet- ings. We ran ads inside the Beltway, in key states and on new media outlets like Pan- dora and SnapChat. But, unfortunately, the unprecedented numbers of ads, visits, postcards, op-eds, emails and petitions weren’t enough. That’s what we all must commit to “building muscle” in 2016. We need to en- gage more banks and employees in every- thing from fundraising to petition-signing, from hosting bank visits to introducing candidates to local business leaders. Let’s make the new year-an election year-a time to reset expectations, both our expectations of lawmakers and their ex- pectations of us. We simply cannot endure another Congress that refuses to do what it takes to provide relief to America’s home- town banks, their customers and their communities. 