By Simon Johnson
An interesting debate is developing within the Republican Party on how to approach the problem of too-big-to-fail financial institutions.
On the one hand, a growing number of influential voices are pushing for measures that would limit the size of megabanks or even push them to become smaller. Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, continues to draw a lot of attention, as does Thomas Hoenig, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and now vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. And Jon Huntsman planted a strong conservative flag on this issue during his run for the presidency in 2011.
This assessment is now shared much more broadly across the right, as seen in recent opinion pieces by George Will and Peggy Noonan, as well as regular analysis by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, including on the issue I write about today. See this Holiday 2012 survey, provided by the Dallas Fed, with links to views in favor of and against breaking up the big banks. Continue reading “A Growing Split Within Republicans On Too Big To Fail Banks”