Bizcon High

New treasury technologies will ease business confidence but its shaky.
Tan 10-13 S (Anjelica, http://thehill.com/policy/finance/300933-policymakers-face-long-road-tofinancial-technology-regulation, Policymakers face long road to financial technology regulation, October
13th 2016) NAR

The government is grappling with how to ensure that consumers and businesses using new
financial technology services are safe without stifling the innovation behind the platforms.
Officials, who were speaking at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution in Washington, discussed the challenges policymakers face in
balancing those priorities. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, said reforms after the crisis could
serve as a guide for regulating financial technology, or fintech. The

Dodd-Frank Act brought us consumer

protection and safety and soundness provisions, Warner said in a question-and-answer session. How do
those fit into the fintech world? The answer isn't obvious. The fast growing financial technology sector has been on the radar
for the government, as several agencies in the last year have stepped up efforts to facilitate and oversee innovation. The Federal Reserve has
established industry task forces to find ways to make the payments system in the United States both faster and more secure. The central bank is
also studying ways for financial companies to use blockchain, a technology used in digital currencies. What

matters to us as
policymakers and regulators is not only whether the migration to a new technological
platform increases or reduces risks but also whether risks are rendered more or less opaque
and how they are distributed among and between financial intermediaries and end users ,
Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said at an industry conference last week. In May, the Treasury Department published a white paper on
online lending platforms. The

paper cited both opportunities and challenges for the government in how to
oversee the new technology. It recommended agencies coordinate on developing policies for the sector. Treasury
believes it is important to consider policies that could minimize borrower risks and
increase investor confidence in a less favorable credit environment, the department said.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a report on responsible innovation by banks that demonstrated how the government is trying
to seek balance with the industry. Innovation is not free from risk, but when managed appropriately,

risk not should impede

progress, Comptroller Thomas Curry wrote in the report, which was published for
comment in March.

Business confidence in the long-run is possible, but it requires tight fiascal control.
Rubin 10-5 - co-chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, was U.S. treasury secretary
from 1995 to 1999. (Robert E., https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heres-how-america-shouldplay-its-winning-hand-for-long-run-economic-growth/2016/10/05/3676df9e-8a7b-11e6-b24fa7f89eb68887_story.html?utm_term=.48d05a7cb26b, October 5th 2016, Heres how America should play
its winning hand for long-run economic growth ) NAR

The United States, however, still holds the worlds best long-run hand . The question is how we
play our cards. We need a policy regime that effectively promotes growth, widespread income gains
and greater economic security in the context of an economy undergoing transformation. These three objectives are
interdependent and mutually reinforcing and, taken together, constitute one overarching goal: inclusive growth, which could, in turn, restore
a sense of common purpose , confidence in our future and much-needed social cohesion. An
inclusive growth agenda would address three broad categories of challenges: first, public investment; second, structural reform and innovation;
and, finally, our intermediate and longer-term fiscal outlook. Public investment should begin with overdue action on infrastructure, including
addressing deferred maintenance estimated at more than a trillion dollars. Repairing and expanding bridges, railways, airports and ports would
create jobs immediately, tighten labor markets to improve wages and increase the productivity and capacity of our economy for years to come.
Economic success also requires increased funding for basic and applied research, broadened access to high-speed Internet and other targeted

investments in our future. Next, we need structural reform in many critical areas, often in conjunction with public investment. Twenty percent of
our children live in poverty thats a moral disgrace and highly counterproductive economically. Breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty
through early family intervention, transitional public employment to provide jobs and workforce readiness, and other policy interventions could
significantly reduce social costs and increase long-run productivity. Likewise, our nations criminal-justice policies fail us morally and harm us
economically. Alternatives to incarceration for many nonviolent crimes, shorter sentences, better rehabilitation in prison and vastly improved reentry programs could produce great direct cost savings, including from reduced recidivism, and substantial productivity gains from better
equipping released prisoners for the workforce. Reform should also include immigration measures that provide a fair path to citizenship and
recognize the immense contribution of both high- and low-skilled immigrants. We also need to level the playing field for workers to opt for
collective bargaining; apply a sensible balance of costs and benefits to regulation; address climate change; improve K-12 education; and develop
innovative measures to address ongoing wage and job pressure from transformative technological development. Those measures might include
public employment, free or low-cost lifelong learning, effective retraining and a substantially expanded earned-income tax credit. Finally, to
achieve inclusive growth, we must address our unsound and economically harmful intermediate and longer-term projected fiscal conditions.

Our current trajectory is likely to increasingly undermine business confidence, both by

creating uncertainty about future policy and by exacerbating concerns about Washingtons
ability to govern. And it diminishes our resilience in the face of another economic or geopolitical crisis; reduces our capacity to fund
public investment and national security; crowds out private investment when it recovers; and, at some future point, could trigger financial market

risks are already materializing. A constructive

fiscal regime would pair immediate public investment to boost current demand and future
productivity with measures to effectively address our longer-term trajectory. That would require
or economic destabilization. To a certain extent, some of these

increased revenue, which should be raised progressively, and putting our social insurance and federal health-care programs on sustainable
financial footing. We should also rigorously scrutinize both the defense and nondefense sides of the budget to improve programmatic efficiency
and relevance. The longer we wait to address these challenges, the greater the effects and the harsher the measures that will be required. But the

Congress to engage in
principled compromise across policy and political divides, to make difficult decisions and to
focus on facts and analysis, while recognizing that politics will always be involved. If they
do this, we can achieve broadly shared economic success. If they do not, we languish.
fundamental challenge, upon which all else depends, is reestablishing a willingness among members of