CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz advocated for increased funding for the CFTC. He expressed concern that the CFTC's budget for 2018 was reduced by $1 million and asserted that the current budget "hinder[s] the CFTC's ability to meet its core missions."
Mr. Quintenz sought to distinguish Chair Giancarlo's request for additional resources from similar requests made by previous CFTC leaders Gary Gensler and Timothy Massad, whose tenures he described as "years of unrealistic budget requests, fiscal mismanagement, and political gamesmanship with Capital Hill."
Mr. Quintenz outlined three areas where, with a "modest" budget increase, the CFTC could achieve substantial progress. Those include (i) "cultivating an economic and econometric focus" through improved "sophisticated econometric and quantitative analyses," (ii) addressing the significant increase of the clearing of standardized swaps and (iii) responding to the continually evolving challenges posed by the FinTech and cryptocurrency markets through the LabCFTC initiative.
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