Obama Nominates Massad to Head CFCT
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Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — President Obama on Tuesday formally nominated Treasury official Timothy Massad to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the independent agency tasked with preventing another financial catastrophe on Wall Street.
Massad has been in charge of winding down the highly unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which injected hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into an effort to keep major banks afloat. The CFCT, which was created by the Wall Street reform law in 2010, has helped to implement and enforce new regulations for the shadowy derivatives market that was central to the 2008 financial crisis.
“Tim’s a guy who doesn’t seek the spotlight, but he consistently delivers. He gets a high return for American taxpayers without a lot of fanfare,” Obama said in a State Dining Room ceremony. “I have every confidence that he is the right man to lead an agency designed to prevent future crises because I think it’s safe to say that he never wants to have to manage something like TARP again.”
If confirmed by the Senate, Massad would replace Gary Gensler, the first CFTC chief, whom Obama said has “done as much as anybody to implement financial reform” since taking office three years ago.
Obama urged Congress to support the small agency’s efforts and confirm Massad.
“We can’t go back to the days when bad behavior could nearly bring down the entire economy unless taxpayers stepped in to rescue it. Anybody who’s working hard to dismantle any of these reforms will have to explain to the American people why they did that when and if a crisis ever does happen again,” he said.
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