Funding Compromise For SEC May Be Worst Of Both Worlds Hot

In all, the handshake arrangement frees up $1.185 billion for the SEC in the current year. That's 30% more than what the agency had to work with in either the pre-Dodd-Frank 2008 budget or the hardline budget goals laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan.

However, it is also 15% less than the $1.4 billion that Pres. Obama and Mary Schapiro have signaled the SEC will need to live up to all of its Dodd-Frank responsibilities.

Faced with a wider mandate and a somewhat less expansive budget to achieve it, the SEC may have to pick and choose its targets more strategically and delegate what it can to other agencies.

For example, this development probably makes it more likely than ever that the SEC will offload RIA oversight to an outside regulator in order to free up resources for other tasks.

Compliance experts are already calling this a "worst of both worlds" scenario where the SEC gets some of the cash it says it needs, but still has all the responsibilities it now has. 

Presumably rolling back Dodd-Frank was not on the negotiating table -- so the House Republicans couldn't have scaled back the regulator's duties to 2008 levels while scaling back its funding request.

But as it is, underfunded by 15% is still underfunded. Whether the SEC is now set up to fail remains to be seen.

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