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ZYWICKI: Why aren't banks lending?
...Every loan bears some risk that it will not be repaid. In making a loan, a lender has two considerations: First, it must be able to price the risk of the loan accurately or, second, it must reduce its risk exposure by reducing the number of loans it makes, the amount it lends or the risk profile of those to whom it lends. Regulations that interfere with the ability to price risk accurately thus inevitably produce efforts to reduce risk exposure by curtailing lending.

Since President Obama was inaugurated, Congress has launched one of the most ambitious legislative agendas in American history - proposals that would fundamentally transform the economy: from remaking the health care system, to a far-reaching set of taxes and regulations to combat climate change and remake the energy system, to a comprehensive financial overhaul bill that would fundamentally reshape the banking system.

How, one wonders, can borrowers and lenders possibly price the risk associated with the imposition of the massive new cap-and-trade system or other new environmental regulations? How could a start-up or growing company anticipate the costs to be imposed by the health insurance reform legislation? How can a lender make a loan today knowing that a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection or state attorney general might later decide the loan is "abusive"? Or what future taxes will have to be levied to fund our unsustainable budget deficits?

They can't.

When the new SBLF was unveiled in February, I testified before the House Financial Services Committee along with several businesspeople and bankers. Their refrain was nearly uniform: Washington's tax-and-regulation orgy was spawning unworkable uncertainty for small businesses and banks, leading to curtailed lending....