CFTC Commissioner Sharon Y. Bowen stated her opposition to the CFTC's 2018 Budget Request. Though she advanced the Budget Request for procedural reasons, Commissioner Bowen argued that the proposed increase of the budget to $281.5 million is inadequate to the CFTC's mission to protect the markets (noting FinTech's growing influence and the importance of cybersecurity). She asserted that the CFTC's ability to perform its duties will be constrained by budgetary limitations:

"Sadly, I do not believe an increase of our budget to $281.5 million next year, though welcome for an agency that has been flat funded for two years, will be enough to enable us to credibly do our jobs and fulfill the demands that our mission requires. Frankly, our small budget belies our independence as it thwarts our ability to make oversight and enforcement decisions based on our own best judgment."

Commissioner Bowen also argued that the CFTC, like other agencies, should receive funding through market participant user fees.

Commentary / Bob Zwirb

Calls for the increased funding of regulatory enforcement agencies are usually hard to resist and, conversely, are difficult to criticize, especially in the nation's capital. Such calls should not be divorced from an examination of the costs and benefits of the underlying policies being promoted. It should not be sufficient to call for "increased resources to enforce our regulations," as Commissioner Bowen does here, when a case can be made that many of the rules adopted during the past decade are (in the words of the current Acting Chair) either "flawed," unduly burdensome, or unnecessary for the proper function of the markets.

It should go without saying that increasing regulatory and enforcement responsibilities does not always justify more budgetary resources, especially where such increased responsibility is in part a function of an agency's past efforts to induce Congress to bestow it with more power, as is the case here. If Congress is not careful, fulfilling such calls for more money may only incentivize such opportunistic behavior on the part of the agency in the future.

What is sorely needed now, especially following years of hyperactive rulemaking and enforcement activity, is an examination of the assumptions that underlie many of those rules, as well as assessments of how they work in the real world, and how enforcement of them affects the markets, if rational public policy is to ensue in the future.

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