The New Development: 30% Staff Cuts at the Fed's Supervision Division

According to Reuters, the Federal Reserve has already been reining in bank examiners — limiting what they can flag, how they communicate findings, and how hard they can push institutions. Now there's a number attached to what comes next.

Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman is reportedly planning to cut roughly 30% of staff inside the Fed's Division of Supervision and Regulation, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren's office, which cited reporting that prompted her November 7, 2025 letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

That division's job, per the Fed's own mandate, is to monitor, inspect, and examine financial institutions to ensure they operate "safely and soundly." Cut 30% of that team and you don't have a smaller watchdog — you have a blind one.

Wall Street Isn't Satisfied — Pushing for More

According to Reuters, Wall Street is actively lobbying for additional wins on top of everything already granted. The industry isn't waiting to see how current rollbacks play out. They're pressing while the window is open.

What's Already Been Done — The Full Ledger

Readers already know the broad strokes from earlier coverage. But the current scale matters for context on why these staff cuts are so significant right now.

According to Americans for Financial Reform, since January 2025, hundreds of bank examiners have already left or been pushed out across federal agencies. The Fed publicly revealed its formerly secret stress-test models — making it easier for big banks to game the results. Capital requirements for the eight largest systemically critical banks have been reduced. Risk-based capital standards are being proposed for further weakening.

Now, on top of all that, Bowman wants to cut 30% of the supervision headcount at the Fed itself.

This isn't nibbling around the edges. This is structural.

Warren's Letter

Senator Warren sent her letter directly to Powell, not Bowman. That's deliberate. She's going over Bowman's head and putting the Fed Chair on record.

"This wholesale deregulation comes right from Wall Street's wish list," Warren wrote, according to the Senate Banking Committee's release, "increasing the likelihood of big bank failures, taxpayer bailouts, executive malfeasance, and economic devastation for the American public."

She also made it personal: "It will not be Vice Chair Bowman who suffers the resulting economic pain — it will once again be working class Americans who will be left to pick up the pieces."

The 30% staff cut number is specific, the Reuters reporting on Wall Street's continued lobbying is specific, and Powell owes the public a direct answer.

What the Left-Leaning Coverage Gets Wrong

Americans for Financial Reform's piece — written by Maya Jenkins, Senior Policy Analyst — frames this almost entirely as Trump's fault and weaves in references to a "war in Iran," an "AI bubble," and recession fears as multiplying dangers. Some of that is legitimate context. Some of it is stacking the rhetorical deck.

The piece also doesn't acknowledge that some of the pre-2025 regulatory framework was genuinely burdensome in ways that reduced lending and economic activity — not every rule written after 2008 was perfectly calibrated. Treating the entire post-crisis regulatory architecture as sacred overlooks legitimate complaints.

What the Right-Leaning and Financial Press Gets Wrong

Reuters' framing focuses heavily on the industry "pushing for wins" without naming which specific firms or lobbyists are making which specific asks. "Wall Street" is doing the heavy lifting as an anonymous villain. Name the banks. Name the lobbying firms. Name the specific rule changes being requested. The public deserves that level of specificity.

The broader financial press has also been slow to connect the staffing cuts directly to operational capacity. Fewer examiners plus gamed stress tests plus reduced capital requirements isn't three separate stories. It's one story with three chapters.

The Real Risk Here

Some deregulation is genuinely good policy. Cutting redundant rules, streamlining compliance for community banks, ending bureaucratic overreach — those are defensible positions.

But cutting 30% of the people responsible for catching the next Silicon Valley Bank — while simultaneously reducing capital buffers, publishing stress test models, and letting Wall Street write the next round of asks — is a different category of decision entirely.

When the next bank wobbles, it won't be Bowman's pension on the line. It won't be the lobbyists' savings accounts. It'll be depositors, small businesses, and taxpayers.

Powell needs to answer Warren's letter publicly. Bowman needs to justify the 30% number with data, not ideology. And Congress — both parties — needs to decide whether they're comfortable owning this if it goes sideways.

According to reporting cited by Warren's office, the plans are already in motion.