Financial reform meets tight budgets

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Congress has failed to increase the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission's budget, despite financial reform mandates, an agency spokesman said.

SEC spokesman John Nester said operating under a continuing budget resolution -- at a 2010-level budget, in other words -- "is already forcing the agency to delay or cut back enforcement and market oversight efforts."

"The longer we act under significant budgetary restricts, the greater the impact," he said, The Hill newspaper reported Monday.

The massive Frank-Dodd financial reform bill passed in the summer shifts responsibilities and increases mandates at various agencies. At the SEC, specifically, the agency screened 1,000 applications to come up with five algorithm exports to study and safeguard financial systems against occurrences such as the market crash in May in which the Dow Jones industrial average lost 900 points in a matter of minutes, before making a quick recovery.

The experts are all dressed up with no place to go, essentially, as the funding has not arrived to hire them, the newspaper said.

In December, Commodities Future Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said there was "far less (in the agency's budget) than what is required to properly fulfill our significantly expanded role."