Speaking Of Obama's "Failure To Enforce The Law..."

Obama is so "lawless" he doesn't enforce liberal legislation either.

Here's the deal.

The enforcement of law is always irregular.

If every law were thoroughly enforced, all of us would have been convicted of something already.

And most of us would be nicknamed "Capote."

If every law were enforced, Bush and Cheney would be doing hard time as war criminals.

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Wonkbook’s Number of the Day: 52 percent. That's the percentage of rulemaking requirementsthat have been met so far under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, four years after it was enacted.

Dodd-Frank's rulemaking is still only half-done. "According to law firm Davis Polk, 208 (52%) of the 398 total rulemaking requirements have been met so far. It's an improvement from 2012, when just 31% of the Dodd-Frank rules were in force, but still lacking....In the past year, regulators have made progress in a number of areas, including limiting in-house trading activities through the Volcker Rule, reforming the market for complex financial instruments called swaps, cutting back on the reliance for credit ratings firms and creating new rules for municipal advisers. But it's clear regulators are not exactly moving at lightning speed, at least compared with the timeline set forth by Congress....Out of 280 rulemaking deadlines that have passed, 127 (45%) of them have been missed by regulators." Matt Egan in CNN.

Exhibit A: The SEC. "Regulators still haven't completed key parts, including standards for the mortgage-securities market and tougher regulations for credit-rating firms. Turnover and lost court battles have held back some regulators, notably the Securities and Exchange Commission, which faces more mandates under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law than any of the other agencies....Only 44% of the SEC's rules are final or nearly final....That is the smallest percentage among the main financial regulators....The SEC is still working on issues at the heart of the financial crisis, including transparency regulations for the derivatives and asset-backed securities markets and tougher rules for credit-rating firms." Andrew Ackerman and Alan Zibel in The Wall Street Journal.

Poll: Four years later, American still skeptical of Wall Street and favor tougher banking regulation. Benjamin Goad in The Hill.

Has Dodd-Frank made our financial system safer? "Even today, a full four years after...it remains unclear whether this massive set of financial regulations has made our banking system fundamentally more stable. But one thing about the law is certain: It’s gotten the financial industry much more interested in individual investors....Relatively calm financial markets combined with new regulations like higher capital requirements and the so-called Volcker rule have made it harder for Wall Street trading machines to regain their glory. That’s given Main Street financial advisers new prestige." Ian Salisbury in Time Magazine.

House Republicans say Dodd-Frank didn't end too big to fail. "The report claims the process created by the law for regulators to designate certain nonbank financial companies as 'systemically important' amounts to telling investors the government thinks those firms are too big to fail....The nonbank designation process is carried out by the Financial Stability Oversight Council....FSOC defenders also point to the fact that many firms, including insurance companies and asset managers, have fought to avoid being designated as evidence the label isn't an advantage." Victoria McGrane in The Wall Street Journal.

Chart: How risky are the biggest banks? Ryan Tracy in The Wall Street Journal.

The limits of the law on insider trading. James B. Stewart in The New York Times.

Next financial-crisis case: Bank of America. Sheelah Kolhatkar in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Merger rush for offshore tax break bets on U.S. stalemate on inversions. Richard Rubin in Bloomberg.

WALLISON: Four years of damage... "When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act took effect on July 21, 2010, it immediately caused a sharp partisan division. This staggeringly large legislation — 2,300 pages — passed the House without a single Republican vote and received only three GOP votes in the Senate. Republicans saw the bill as ObamaCare for the financial system, a vast and unnecessary expansion of the regulatory state. Four years later, Dodd-Frank's pernicious effects have shown that the law's critics were, if anything, too kind. Dodd-Frank has already overwhelmed the regulatory system, stifled the financial industry and impaired economic growth." Peter J. Wallison in The Wall Street Journal.

BLOOMBERG VIEW: ...or four years of inaction. "Polling suggests that most Americans think it hasn’t done enough to protect them from a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis....Unfortunately, they’re right. At its core, the Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to work like a three-stage containment system. Better monitoring and limits on risk-taking would make accidents less likely to happen. If financial institutions did get into trouble, added capital would make them more likely to survive. If they nonetheless failed, advance planning and new resolution mechanisms would allow them to do so without bringing down the broader financial system and the economy. Despite all the progress regulators have made, they have yet to complete any level of this fail-safe system." The Editors.