President Donald Trump and his legislative cohort Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Texas Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, have launched a review of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations. They claim these regulations are crimping lending, the economy and job creation. Well, if your only source of news is Fox “News,” you might believe that. But actually these claims are mostly hogwash.

The economy, by any measure, has recovered and job creation is steady. This might be a surprise to those who have lost their jobs because of the disappearance of traditional industrial and coal-mining jobs, but the writing on the wall about those sectors has been visible to anyone who cared to look for some time now. They are gone; get retrained.

Hensarling claims Dodd-Frank guarantees future bailouts for Wall Street. His proposal would require banks to meet strict balance requirements to be eligible for emergency relief, and that’s a good thing. His remaining 40 proposals are dangerous. Restrictions that restrain reckless conduct by large financial firms must be retained.

Restrictions on small local banks should be loosened to facilitate local loans to local businesses. This is a major problem of Dodd-Frank. It can be fixed without throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Unless, of course, your primary intent is to carry water for the financial industry. This dark desire of those supporting the gutting of Dodd-Frank is perhaps revealed by the inclusion of an outright attack on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which enforces consumer protection laws, and scrutinizes the financial business practices of those lenders, creditors, collectors, and credit card companies who prey on consumers.

We consumers should be outraged by any legislator who joins this effort to skin us. Please indicate your indignation to your congressional representatives.

Paul W. Dutram

Waterville

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