The Hill News

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Wednesday said he wouldn’t call for the repeal of the new Wall Street reform law President Obama signed.

Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican leader, said he wouldn’t call for repealing the new rules for the financial industry as has House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House GOP leader.

“This bill, so much of it, is going to be left up to regulators,” Cantor noted during an appearance on ABC’s “Top Line” webcast. 

If Republicans reclaim the majority in November, the minority whip said it would be “incumbent on us to insist the regulations” reflect the GOP’s free-market principles. 

Analysts have said the effectiveness of the Wall Street reform bill, which Democrats passed through Congress with little Republican support, would depend on how agencies interpret the new rules for the financial industry. Lobbyists for the industry have reportedly been shifting their focus from lawmakers to regulators as the bill is implemented in coming months.

Cantor did not say whether he would support a repeal of Wall Street reform when asked directly if he would favor the approach Boehner supports.

The whip said that while there was a need for altering regulations to address “excesses” in the markets, “there was not a need to sit here and cast a net over the capital markets in this country.”