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From The Washington Times:

President Obama’s plan to revamp financial regulations triggered immediate criticism Wednesday from both the political left and right over the expanded policing authorities given to the Federal Reserve while business groups grumbled about a powerful new agency charged with protecting consumers against abusive lending.

The broad plan would step up regulation of nearly every financial institution while extending government control to markets and players such as hedge funds that escaped supervision in the past. But it keeps much of the patchwork quilt of regulatory agencies created in the last century as the government responded to financial crises like the one that precipitated the current overhaul last fall.

The only regulator to get the ax was the Office of Thrift Supervision, whose lax regulation of Countrywide and other freewheeling mortgage lenders helped cause a meltdown in mortgage lending that continues to this day and precipitated the worst global financial crisis and recession since World War II.

The Fed would receive enhanced power to regulate, lend to and close down companies outside its traditional banking domain, if their failure could endanger the economy or financial system. But the Fed would have to get the Treasury’s agreement to any rescue that puts taxpayer dollars at risk, and it would lose its power to write regulations protecting consumers against abuses. Those powers would be taken over by the new consumer agency.