United States lawmaker Tim Burchett proposed an amendment to the Financial Services and General Government Bill (FSGG) that could reduce SEC chairman Gary Gensler's salary to just $1 per year.
The proposal put forward by Burchett's representatives aims to reduce government spending, including funds allocated to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Currently, Gensler is estimated to receive a salary of more than $300,000 per year for his role as SEC chairman.
In this law proposal, there are plans to reduce the budgets of a number of government agencies other than the SEC. Steve Womack, who presented the bill to the House Rules Committee on November 6, argued that the SEC and other government agencies have become an unnecessary financial burden on the government.
Womack said the best course of action would be to defund the SEC to limit the "intrusiveness" of its regulations, while encouraging the regulator to refocus attention on its core goals.
“Specifically, we reject rulemaking at the Securities and Exchange Commission that lacks a proper cost-benefit analysis and aggregate impact analysis,” Womack said.
“To be clear, the agencies under our jurisdiction perform essential functions; however, many are deviating from their mandate and the results are truly harming the American people," he added.
This is not the first time Gensler and the SEC have faced criticism from US politicians. On June 12, US Representatives Warren Davidson and Tom Emmer introduced the SEC Stabilization Act to the House of Representatives. One of the main points in this legislation was the removal of Gensler from his position as SEC chairman.
If enacted, the legislation would replace Gensler and redistribute the agency's authority between the SEC chairman and commissioner. In addition, this law would create the position of executive director and add one additional commissioner to the agency to prevent domination of power by one political party.