September 08, 2025

Warren and Sanders Press Big Bank CEOs on Padding Executives' Pockets, Undermining Financial Stability After Trump Admin Reduced Capital Requirements

“Contrary to the rhetoric of your lobbyists, you have not used the full amount of your reduced capital buffer requirements to increase lending or improve pricing for customers.”

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent letters to six major Wall Street banks challenging their recent authorization of massive stock buybacks and higher dividends following the Trump Administration reducing their capital requirements. These actions disproportionately benefit their wealthy shareholders and executives while threatening American financial stability and paving the way for another taxpayer bailout. The Senators sent letters to Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.

“When (your bank’s) capital declines, its susceptibility to economic shocks and likelihood of failure increases. Yet, contrary to the rhetoric of your lobbyists, you have not used the full amount of your reduced capital buffer requirements to increase lending or improve pricing for customers. The lower capital requirements, instead, clearly allowed (your bank) to boost buybacks and dividends,” the Senators wrote. “(Your bank’s) lobbying, directly and through its trade associations, and the Trump Administration’s willingness to grant your wishlist, therefore puts the entire economy at risk.”

The Senators reminded the CEOs of the threat of reduced capital to the American economy and to taxpayers: “Severely undercapitalized Wall Street banks contributed to the 2008 financial crisis and worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Millions of people lost their jobs, depleted their life savings, and were thrown out of their homes. Your bank(s) received billion(s) in direct bailouts through the Troubled Asset Relief Program and substantially more indirect government assistance through myriad emergency lending programs and other support.”

The Senators pressed for answers on the disparity between these banks’ lobbying efforts and their recent moves to juice buybacks and dividends, asking for responses no later than September 22, 2025.

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