US lawmaker proposes to cut SEC chair Gary Gensler’s salary to $1
A United States lawmaker wants to strip the Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler of his salary by paying him just $1 per year.
In a proposed amendment to the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Rep. Tim Burchett suggested that Gensler’s salary be brought down to $1, as part of wider proposal to defund the regulator.
First introduced on July 13 this year, the FSGG bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation that aims to significantly reduce government spending across the board.
It’s estimated that Gensler earns north of $300,000 per year for his duties as head of the SEC.
Burchett wasn’t the only lawmaker taking aim at the SEC, with the overall bill aimed at drastically cutting funding to government agencies.
While introducing the bill to the House Rules Committee on Nov. 6, Rep. Steve Womack outlined that the SEC, among other government agencies, had fallen prey to regulatory overreach and were becoming an undue financial burden on the government.
Womack said that the best course of action would be to defund the SEC, to help limit its regulatory “intrusiveness” while forcing the regulator to return focus to its core mission.
“Specifically, we turn off rulemakings at the Securities and Exchange Commission that lack proper cost-benefit analysis and aggregate impact analysis.”
“To be clear, the agencies under our jurisdiction perform important functions; however, many have strayed from their mandate and the results have been a true disservice to the American people,” Womack added.
We are on an unsustainable trajectory.
My bill reins in wasteful Washington spending to address our dire fiscal situation. https://t.co/lWgyvHknQQ
— Rep. Steve Womack (@rep_stevewomack) November 6, 2023
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This isn’t the first time that Gensler and his agency have come under fire from U.S. politicians.
On June 12, United States Reps. Warren Davidson and Tom Emmer introduced the SEC Stabilization Act to the House of Representatives, with one of the bill’s primary provisions being one that would remove Gary Gensler as chair of the SEC.
If passed, the bill would fire Gensler and redistribute the power of the agency between the SEC chair and commissioners. It would also create an executive director position and add a sixth commissioner to the agency to prevent any one political party from holding a majority sway.
Davidson and Emmer have long been vocal critics of the Gensler-led SEC, with Emmer calling the SEC Chair a “bad faith regulator” and accusing him of “blindly spraying the crypto community with enforcement actions while completely missing the truly bad actors.”
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According to the US Department of Justice, Wolf Capital’s co-founder has pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy for luring 2,800 crypto investors into a Ponzi scheme.
Making Britain better off will be “at the forefront of the chancellor’s mind” during her visit to China, the Treasury has said amid controversy over the trip.
Rachel Reeves flew out on Friday after ignoring calls from opposition parties to cancel the long-planned venture because of market turmoil at home.
The past week has seen a drop in the pound and an increase in government borrowing costs, which has fuelled speculation of more spending cuts or tax rises.
The Tories have accused the chancellor of having “fled to China” rather than explain how she will fix the UK’s flatlining economy, while the Liberal Democrats say she should stay in Britain and announce a “plan B” to address market volatility.
However, Ms Reeves has rejected calls to cancel the visit, writing in The Times on Friday night that choosing not to engage with China is “no choice at all”.
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The chancellor will be accompanied by Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and other senior executives.
She will meet with her counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, in Beijing on Saturday to discuss financial services, trade and investment.
She will also “raise difficult issues”, including Chinese firms supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns over constraints on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, the Treasury said.
But it did not mention whether Ms Reeves would raise the treatment of the Uyghur community, which Downing Street said Foreign Secretary David Lammy would do during his visit last year.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing. Pic: AP
On Friday, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy defended the trip, telling Sky News that the climbing cost of government borrowing was a “global trend” that had affected many countries, “most notably the United States”.
“We are still on track to be the fastest growing economy, according to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] in Europe,” she told Anna Jones on Sky News Breakfast.
“China is the second-largest economy, and what China does has the biggest impact on people from Stockton to Sunderland, right across the UK, and it’s absolutely essential that we have a relationship with them.”
Read more – Ed Conway analysis: The chancellor’s gamble with China
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Nandy defends Reeves’ trip to China
However, former prime minister Boris Johnson said Ms Reeves had “been rumbled” and said she should “make her way to HR and collect her P45 – or stay in China”.
While in the country’s capital, Ms Reeves will also visit British bike brand Brompton’s flagship store, which relies heavily on exports to China, before heading to Shanghai for talks with representatives across British and Chinese businesses.
It is the first UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) since 2019, building on the Labour government’s plan for a “pragmatic” policy with the world’s second-largest economy.
Sir Keir Starmer was the first British prime minister to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping in six years at the G20 summit in Brazil last autumn.
Relations between the UK and China have become strained over the last decade as the Conservative government spoke out against human rights abuses and concerns grew over national security risks.
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How much do we trade with China?
Navigating this has proved tricky given China is the UK’s fourth largest single trading partner, with a trade relationship worth almost £113bn and exports to China supporting over 455,000 jobs in the UK in 2020, according to the government.
During the Tories’ 14 years in office, the approach varied dramatically from the “golden era” under David Cameron to hawkish aggression under Liz Truss, while Rishi Sunak vowed to be “robust” but resisted pressure from his own party to brand China a threat.
The Treasury said a stable relationship with China would support economic growth and that “making working people across Britain secure and better off is at the forefront of the chancellor’s mind”.
Ahead of her visit, Ms Reeves said: “By finding common ground on trade and investment, while being candid about our differences and upholding national security as the first duty of this government, we can build a long-term economic relationship with China that works in the national interest.”
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