PROPOSED BANK REGULATIONS GO TOO FAR

Why is it that when government officials don't get their way with legislators or voters, they go ahead and do what they want to do anyway?

This is the case with several federal agencies that want to monitor private bank accounts in order to crack down on money laundering. Most folks with checking accounts, savings accounts and certificates of deposits don't even know what money laundering is. It is what criminals do with large sums of illegally obtained cash. Through a series of legal financial transactions, often involving banks, the dirty money is cleaned and goes into the economic pipeline.

As recently as last year, there was an attempt in Congress to get legislation that would have allowed the Treasury Department and several bank regulatory agencies to get detailed information about individual accounts, including the source of funds kept in those accounts and the types of transactions involving money from those accounts.

To the banking industry, this amounts to little more than a gross invasion of privacy by Big Government. The legislative efforts were unsuccessful, thanks in large part to strong opposition from banks' lobbying against the plan.

But that didn't stop the feds, who simply announced they intended to issue regulations that would allow the same monitoring that had been unsuccessfully sought in the legislation.

So much for the will of the people and the legislative process.

This is happening more and more these days. White House administrations in recent years have found executive orders to be far more expedient than legislation. If Congress won't help, just issue another executive order.

In trying to impose the regulations without benefit of empowering legislation, the feds were required to accept public comments on the idea. And the public has certainly reacted -- almost entirely negatively.

As local bankers observe, the federal government already has laws on the books that allow monitoring of large sums of money. All bank transactions over $10,000 must be documented and reported.

The idea of applying those same standards to virtually every bank transaction goes far beyond what is needed. If there are reasons to take more steps, let the regulators convince Congress and get the needed laws passed instead of resorting to regulating by edict.