Congress moves to ease bank rules: a needed update or a slippery slope?

The US financial system is safer and more stable than it was a decade ago in the depths of a financial crisis. And big banks are widely profitable.

All this because of – or some say despite – major bank legislation known as the Dodd-Frank Act.

So when the Senate, in a rare showing of bipartisan cooperation, passed a bill Wednesday to roll back portions of Dodd-Frank and to lighten the regulatory burden on community banks, it could have been just another ho-hum legislative revision and update. Instead, the bill drew fire from both