The article explains that this program was terminated in 2017:
> This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story,[2] was officially ended in August 2017,[3] and the FDIC settled multiple lawsuits by promising to Congress additional training for its examiners and to cease issuing "informal" and "unwritten suggestions" to banks.
This program actually seems pretty sketchy. Government officials were having banks to identify customers in certain industries and subsequently "informally suggesting" that banks terminate these customers' accounts. Congress also criticized this program:
> Forceful prosecution of those who defraud American consumers is both responsible and admirable. However, Department of Justice initiatives to combat mass-market consumer fraud must be legitimate exercises of the Department's legal authorities, and must be executed in a manner that does not unfairly harm legitimate merchants and individuals.
> Operation Choke Point fails both these requirements. The Department's radical reinterpretation of what constitutes an actionable violation under § 951 of FIRREA fundamentally distorts Congress' intent in enacting the law, and inappropriately demands that bankers act as the moral arbiters and policemen of the commercial world. In light of the Department's obligation to act within the bounds of the law, and its avowed commitment not to "discourage or inhibit" the lawful conduct of honest merchants, it is necessary to disavow and dismantle Operation Choke Point.
Should the government be able to strip people of their ability to use banking services, even when they have committed no crimes? Sure, we may not like gun stores or fireworks or porn but the kicking people off of banking services without justification is quite authoritarian.
(And before anyone gets triggered about me talking about politics, please notice that the examples below are referring to both parties in the same light)
1. Selling marijuana is still illegal federally but there are hundreds of companies selling it out in the open in states where it is legal. Neither Republican or Democratic Presidents seem to have much interest in prosecuting them. Yes I know The former attorney general under Trump wanted to start prosecutions but the Republican Congress at the time basically said he couldn’t use funds for it and it went against what even Trump wanted.
2. How many companies were paying illegal immigrants for farm labor and factory work while both Republican and Democratic lawmakers looked the other way until Trump? I am not making a value judgement either way here.
Your first example is a contradiction between state law and federal law. Large public companies seemed to stay out of this business for that reason.
Your second example was also not something large public companies were doing consistently and I don't think that has changed with a different administration.
"Uber" is not any sort of statement or reasoning in support of what you are saying.
So Uber wasn’t breaking local taxi laws for years?
Everyone knows that farmers and companies employing low skill labor have been employing illegal immigrants for decades. Other presidents both Republican and Democrats have looked the other way because both sets of employers would not be able to find enough cheap labor otherwise. No one wants to harm the farm belt because of their outsized electoral college influence.
Well seeing that your question doesn’t have anything to do with the thread...
My post:
“ It’s not about the regulations, it’s about whether the executive branch chooses to enforce them and how much.”
And the response to:
“ That's really not true, you can't run a giant public company and start breaking laws because you think 'the current executive branch won't care'.”
What does it have to do with “changing” the executive branch?
The “executive branch” is not just at the federal level. It’s also at the state and the local level where the president/governor/mayor has a lot of influence on what gets enforced.
No, but certain politicians would with a goal of gun elimination might. We have already seen pointless laws passed to ban cosmetic features on guns that has zero purpose other than punish monetarily and criminalize otherwise law abiding citizens. At the very least it makes them buy federal tax stamps or pay for Federal Firearms Licenses which is a paywall for ownership and will ultimately reduce ownership rates.
