Robert Rubin, former Treasury secretary and current Citigroup Inc. director and senior counselor, found himself in the middle of a media storm.

At this event, Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX) will discuss new legislation aimed at increasing the accountability of the Federal Reserve while strengthening its independence from political pressure.

There is good reason to pause and consider whether legislation that allows such consolidation of the banking and financial-services sectors is in the nation's interests.

The Dodd-Frank legislation has many problems and omissions, and much is still uncertain about implementation. But the new liquidation authority provides for the possibility of making it so that future crises do not involve the bailouts of creditors that truly embodied the problem of having banks that are too big to fail.

Under the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, large nonbank firms may be declared systemically important because their failure will cause a systemic breakdown. In effect, this amounts to a government statement that these firms are too big to fail.

When the bubble deflated in 2007, an unprecedented number of weak mortgages went into default - those that were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, and those that had been securitized by Wall Street. This drove down housing prices and threw Fannie and Freddie into insolvency. 

Many Americans resent banks' roles in the financial crisis and in home foreclosures, and are angered at huge salaries paid by firms that received taxpayer money. These feelings are understandable, but not the entire picture.

The Huntsman plan for regulatory reform is a good effort, but it fails to come close to accomplishing the one major goal that it highlights in its summary description — “ending” too-big-to-fail (TBTF).