From: JDSupra Business Advisor
by Gregory Omer | Thompson Coburn LLP
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‘Rationalizing’ financial regulation and the 2008 Paulson Plan
However, the phrase may sound familiar, because similar phrases were used in a U.S. Treasury Department report issued in March 2008, at the end of the George W. Bush administration. That report, styled a “Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure,” became commonly known as the “Paulson Plan” (in honor of then-Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson), and it used the phrases “rationalizing the chartering of financial institutions” and “rationalization of federal supervision over state-chartered banks.” The Paulson Plan did not get as much attention as it might have, because its newsworthiness was quickly overwhelmed by financial crisis news as 2008 progressed.
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The Paulson Plan used the term “rationalizing” in proposing a variety of financial regulatory changes for consideration that would have a major impact on the U.S. dual banking system and bank charter choices currently available to banking institutions in the U.S., including: