Charlie Rose Talks to Barney Frank

Did you get most of what you wanted in the Dodd-Frank reforms? A lot of people think the banks got their way, but bankers say they're not happy about them.
The truth is the latter. I didn't get everything I wanted. I got better than 90 percent. Actually, there was one thing in it that I didn't want, and it's become a major focal point. That's the debate between the credit-card companies and the merchants. It's important, but it wasn't a cause of the crisis, so we did not have that in the House bill. But here's the key point: The lobbying power doesn't come from the big banks. The community banks beat the big banks. It's a good thing about America. Money is important, but votes will beat money any day.

The banks also say they don't know how this will play out until all the new rules are defined. They say a lot of power for this falls to the regulators.
Some of it does, although there are limits. For instance, we say no more "too big to fail." From now on, if an institution fails, it goes out of business. We made it illegal now to do what was done in 2008. I don't say that critically. Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke—whom I admire—they had no option. One of the things we did was respond to Hank Paulson's request that we give him some options. If a large institution fails, here's the problem: It's got debts to so many different people who, in turn, have debts. The crash of one of those institutions can reverberate. So do you pay their debts or not? In 2008 the answer was either you pay all the debts or none. Legally you had no choice.