Rep. Steil to Newsmax: Tap Brakes on New Banking Regulations

Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Wednesday that it’s important to understand what went wrong and caused the recent bank failures, rather than just piling on more regulations.

“I think we have to ask the question of why they weren’t prepared for the high interest rate environment we were in,” Steil said on Newsmax’s “National Report.” “Did they actually buy into the temporary and transitory argument the Biden administration was trying to make as it relates to inflation?

“Now we all know the ugly truth that the Biden administration’s policies have driven inflation higher, and it’s here to stay until we turn the policies around. It’s the reckless spending of the Biden administration, it’s their war on energy, it’s their paying people not to work that drove inflation in the first place.

“And then we have entities under the executive branch that were asleep at the wheel when inflation continued to remain high. I think we got to get the answers to these questions. I think the American people deserve to know the answers.”

Steil said most Americans should be confident in the U.S. banking system.

“I think everyday Americans, anybody with less than $250,000, which is virtually every citizen that’s out there, except the ultra-rich, should feel comfortable in the security of their deposits in their banks,” he said. “But, ultimately, we’ve got to get the economy back on track. It’s the insecurity of the economy, driven by bad policies coming out of the Biden administration, that puts us all on edge in the first place.

“If we really get down to the core brass tacks of what happened, what happened was higher interest rates, higher interest rates because of massive inflation, massive inflation because of the Biden administration. So, at the end of the day, Congress has to get to work to unwind two terrible years of one-party Democratic control.”

Steil also said lawmakers should tap the brakes on the impulse to create more banking regulations before understanding what happened.

“I think what’s important is that we don’t jump to conclusions as to how we solve this, but we rather ask the questions of what went wrong,” he said. 

“You’ve got to enforce the rules and regulations that are already on the books, and so I think we’ve got to dig into these questions. What we don’t want to do is continue to pile regulations on top of regulations just to drive up the cost for people who want to get a car loan or a home loan.”