គណបក្សសាធារណរដ្ឋខាងស្ដាំ-DeSantis, Greene-បន្ទោសការបរាជ័យ SBV លើគោលការណ៍ 'ភ្ញាក់' ប៉ុន្តែដោយគ្មានភស្តុតាងច្បាស់លាស់

Topline

Some hard-right Republicans blamed the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank on what they called “woke” social and environmental policies, a dubious and unproven theory pushed as some GOP House leaders express confidence in the Biden Administration’s moves to avert the fallout—and urge members to avoid any factually fraught claims.

ការពិតសំខាន់

In the days after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Rep. James Comer (Ky.), Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Rep. Ronny Jackson (Texas) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla.) focused their criticism on what they called “woke” investments and diversity, equity and inclusion policies at the banks, with DeSantis speculating on Fox News these initiatives “really diverted from them focusing on their core mission.”

Greene criticized the federal government for promising to make depositors at the banks whole (money the Biden Administration said will come from banks, rather than taxpayers), claiming that SVB “hedged on failing funds that offered ‘sustainable finance and carbon neutral operations to support a healthier planet,’” she tweeted.

Greene’s tweet is an apparent reference to SVB’s commitment to 100% carbon-neutral operations by 2025 and investing $5 billion by 2027 to help clients build sustainable businesses, according to its 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance Report.

Former Vice President Mike Pence also blasted SVB for engaging “in risky borrowing and lending on behalf of California’s donor class while committing billions of dollars to woke projects fighting climate change,” he wrote in a Daily Mail op-ed on Tuesday.

Experts have said there’s no evidence these investments failed and led to the bank’s demise, and Silicon Valley Bank is far from the only financial institution nowadays to weigh environmental, social and governance practices (commonly known as ESG) when making investment decisions—though other banks have drawn flak from Republicans for this practice.

Instead, most experts have linked SVB’s collapse to a hike in interest rates, which hurt the value of the bank’s long-term U.S. Treasury bonds and caused many of its tech-focused clients to withdraw deposits due to scarce venture capital funding.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has yet to come out strong in criticizing the Biden Administration for the crisis, and hours before the Fed announced a plan to safeguard SVB depositors Sunday, he expressed confidence in the federal government’s “tools” to deal with the crisis in a Fox News interview, in what could have been a move to boost investor confidence.

Several Republicans have explicitly backed the government’s rescue plan: House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) told Punchbowl on Monday night the Biden Administration “acted swiftly and boldly . . . to resolve two banks,” while Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted that federal banking regulators made the “right decision.”

GOP leadership has urged its members to walk a fine line in their rhetoric surrounding the bank failures: Chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) “discouraged making up a narrative that isn’t accurate or justifiable” in a members-only call on Monday, Republican sources told ច្រើន ហាង.

សាវតាសំខាន់

The FDIC shut down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday and Signature on Sunday, marking the second- and third-largest bank failures in history. SVB’s downfall has been attributed to its focus on the struggling technology startup industry and increasing interest rates. New York-based Signature Bank, a main lender to the ailing cryptocurrency industry, was shuttered after shares fell by nearly 25% on Friday and customers swiftly withdrew their deposits. The FDIC promised to make all SVB and Signature depositors whole, even if their deposits exceed the $250,000 normally insured by the government, a sweeping action the FDIC justified by citing “systemic risk” to the banking system. Bipartisan concerns have emerged about this promise to back all SVB and Signature depositors. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told the ស៊ីនតោនប៉ុស្តិ៍ that “if there is a bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, it must be 100 percent financed by Wall Street,” while Greene tweeted “the fools running the bank were woke and almost became broke, but the Democrats and the Fed swooped in to make sure their woke donors at SVB didn’t go under.”

តង់ហ្សង់។

Democrats have blamed the crisis on Trump-era regulatory rollbacks that freed SVB and other small- and medium-sized banks from regular stress tests and capital and liquidity standards. The Trump-era rollbacks, which passed in 2018 with support from dozens of Democrats, modified the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act by moving the threshold for banks to face additional scrutiny from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion, under the belief that banks of SVB’s size (with less than $250 billion) should not be classified as “systemically important financial institutions” because they were not a threat to the economic stability. Banking experts have said that the more stringent regulations implemented as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act—a reaction to the 2008 financial crisis—may have compelled the banks to take more preventive measures, but the banks’ dependency on the ailing tech startup sector, along with rising interest rates that tanked the value of its investments, were also factors in its demise

contra

Some Democrats also placed blame on the Federal Reserve and its Chair, Jerome Powell, for not subjecting banks like SVB to enough scrutiny—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime Powell critic, said he should recuse himself from the agency’s internal probe of its role in the SVB collapse and accused the Fed of allowing financial institutions to “load up on risk.” There’s some bipartisan consensus in targeting the Fed: Republican Senate Banking Committee member Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) told Bloomberg the San Francisco Fed office (for which SVB CEO Greg Becker served as a director until Friday) should be held accountable, while Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) expressed similar concerns to Punchbowl.

ប្រធានរិះគន់

McCarthy, in discussing the debt ceiling negotiations with the White House on Fox News, tied rising interest rates that contributed to SVB’s collapse to mounting government debt, arguing debt has contributed to the spike in inflation that caused the Fed to hike interest rates. “High debt brings inflation and what happens with inflation? You see with this bank—interest rates moving up,” he said, teasing what could become an emerging Republican talking point.

អ្វីដែលត្រូវមើល

Warren and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would reverse the 2018 changes. But any new regulations face long odds of passing the GOP-controlled House. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said “intervention does nothing” to stop banks from relying on the government as fallback for “excessive risks,” while McHenry (N.C.) said he has “confidence” in “the protections already in place.”

អានបន្ថែម

គណបក្សប្រជាធិបតេយ្យបន្ទោសការដួលរលំរបស់ SVB លើបទបញ្ញត្តិរបស់ Trump-Era ប៉ុន្តែ GOP ជំទាស់នឹងច្បាប់តឹងរ៉ឹង (Forbes)

‘Head Fake Rally’? Dow Jumps 400 Points On Bank Stocks’ $37 Billion Recovery (Forbes)

How Trump’s Deregulation Sowed The Seeds For Silicon Valley Bank’s Demise (Forbes)