Michael Ettlinger, Adam Hersh: There are foolish things to defund in the federal budget

  What do we have to do, be hit on the head with a brick before we regulate financial markets? Well, actually, we already did get hit on the head with a brick—or the economic equivalent thereof—the worst recession since the Great Depression due in large part to the negligent supervision of our financial markets by regulators during the George W. Bush administration. And yet, there’s serious talk about nipping new regulatory enforcement in the bud by starving the implementing agencies of funds. How many bricks is this going to take?

  For all its failings, Congress doesn’t like getting hit in the head by economic bricks. So, voila! In 2010 Congress went through a very painful process of passing financial market regulatory reform. The representatives of Wall Street, however, did their best to make the regulation as weak as possible. The resulting legislation isn’t perfect—arguably, it didn’t go far enough or put authority in all the right places—but there is no serious question that it’s way better than the brick-inviting system that existed before.