GAO report calls for US regulatory reformation

The GAO has issued a report urging an overhaul for existing US regulators

WASHINGTON, DC - The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report concluding that the US regulatory system requires drastic reform. The report, entitled 'A Framework for Crafting and Assessing Proposals to Modernize the Outdated US Financial Regulatory System', outlines naine principles for a new regulatory system.

It is widely anticipated that the incoming Obama Presidential administration will overhaul the US regulatory structure. Speculation around a US regulatory reformation has been further fuelled by the grilling of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Congress, in the wake of its failure to avert or detect earlier the $50 billion Madoff fraud.

The GAO says the new environment must be more "efficient and effective", stopping short of explicitly calling for the dissolution of some of the existing agencies, as the US Treasury did in its March 2008 regulatory blueprint.

The GAO has been calling for regulatory reform since 1994, and began drafting its current report in April 2008 - after the Bear Stearns collapse but before the majority of the current wave of financial turmoil, institutional failures and government bailouts.

The report may be downloaded here.