JWLOB, What are you so upset about? We've been hearing payout rumors all the way from 2004.
I am sure you have a "good posting history" ;D
It's my memory.. I can't remember back the last 5 years... ;D----> I have a good read here-----> SEC Budget Would Increase 11% Under Obama’s Request
February 01, 2010, 4:21 PM EST
By Jesse Westbrook
Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s budget would boost U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission funding 11 percent to $1.23 billion to help the agency improve technology and hire staff with expertise in financial products.
The SEC intends to “adequately staff” its unit that investigates fraud to “address increasingly complex financial products and transactions,” according to the spending plan Obama sent to Congress today. The SEC enforcement division is also redesigning its system for collecting data from financial firms and building an information technology forensics lab.
Congress approved $1.11 billion in spending for the SEC in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. Obama’s fiscal 2011 request shows lawmakers are pursuing increases in funding after agency officials said flat budgets during the Bush administration made it difficult to keep pace with innovations on Wall Street.
The SEC, which expects to have 3,816 full-time employees at the end of the current fiscal year, investigates wrongdoing involving public companies, brokerage firms and money managers. It also writes rules for stock exchanges and what companies must disclose to investors about earnings and how much they pay top executives.
SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro in November urged Congress to let her set the agency’s budget based on fees it collects from the financial industry. So-called self-funding would enable the SEC to boost staff as needed, Schapiro said.
Bernard Madoff
Lawmakers faulted the SEC last year for missing Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and for failing in its regulation of investment banks including Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which collapsed in 2008. Congress would have less oversight of the SEC if the agency set its own budget.
The SEC collects fees from companies that register stocks and bonds with the agency. The regulator sends all the money to the Treasury Department and its annual budget is determined by Congress and the White House.
Obama’s spending plan assumes the SEC will collect $1.74 billion in fees and allows the agency to keep $1.23 billion to fund its operations for fiscal 2011.
Congress is weighing legislation to overhaul Wall Street regulation after an economic crisis stemming from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market cost financial companies more than $1.73 trillion.
The White House last year issued a proposal that would stiffen trading rules for derivatives and require hedge funds to submit to routine SEC inspections.
The Obama administration today said its budget will allow the SEC to implement parts of the regulatory overhaul, including policing derivatives. The SEC would get an additional $24 million to hire staff if Congress approves reform legislation.
The SEC’s full-time employees would increase 10 percent to 4,200 by October 2011 if the agency gets the full $1.26 billion. Staff in the enforcement division would rise 10.6 percent to 1,368. New hiring would be cut by 38 full-time positions if the SEC doesn’t get the additional $24 million.
“If enacted, the president’s request will do a great deal to help us keep pace with the continuing growth of the markets and provide necessary resources to support important regulatory initiatives,” Schapiro said in a statement.
Obama’s plan would boost funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by 55 percent to $261 million. Almost half the increase, or $45 million, would fund new authority granted under the regulatory overhaul plan. The White House last year proposed that the CFTC share derivatives oversight with the SEC.
The spending requests for the SEC and CFTC are part of a $3.8 trillion budget that the administration sent to Congress today. The overall plan puts an emphasis on job creation and would raise taxes for the most wealthy Americans in an attempt to narrow the deficit.