Now the talking points are quickly moving from what caused the failure to what didn’t: deregulation.

Now the talking points are quickly moving from what caused the failure to what didn’t: deregulation. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said that “government intervention does nothing,” while House Financial Services Chair Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., expressed “confidence in … the protections already in place.”

But their argument is also wrong. There are many causes to the failures here, but a 2018 bill deregulating banks just like SVB — which I warned about at the time — must play a central role in understanding what has happened and how we should respond.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, then-President Barack Obama signed the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which overhauled the financial regulatory system. Many of the elements of the 2008 crisis that were addressed in Dodd-Frank didn’t play a role in SVB’s failure. This time, there were no opaque credit default swaps or complicated asset-backed securities that Wall Street itself barely understood. It was, in fact, a pretty boring banking crisis underneath all the panic and terror.