For over half a century, American banks and credit unions have operated under financial reporting requirements frozen in time. From 1970, to be exact. While the economy has transformed, inflation has soared, and technology has revolutionized banking, the Bank Secrecy Act’s reporting thresholds have remained stubbornly unchanged. This bureaucratic inertia hasn’t just created inefficiency; it’s contributed to a concerning trend of “debanking” that threatens financial access to a variety of Americans.

Thankfully, Senator John Kennedy and his colleagues are bringing common sense to Washington with the STREAMLINE Act—legislation that deserves support from anyone who values both financial freedom and effective law enforcement.

The numbers tell a sobering story. Under current law, banks must file a currency transaction report for any cash transaction exceeding $10,000, a threshold set when Richard Nixon was president and gas cost 36 cents per gallon. Similarly, suspicious activity reports are triggered at laughably outdated levels of $2,000 or $5,000. Adjusted for inflation, that original $10,000 threshold would be approximately $78,000 today. Instead, we’ve allowed it to stagnate, transforming reasonable oversight into a paperwork avalanche that buries financial institutions under millions of reports annually.

This isn’t mere inconvenience. The compliance burden diverts resources from actual crime-fighting to box-checking exercises. Worse, it incentivizes a disturbing practice: when faced with overwhelming reporting requirements, some banks simply refuse service to entire categories of customers or industries they deem too risky or too paperwork-intensive.

This is a major driver behind debanking, and it’s happening to gun dealers, cryptocurrency businesses, religious organizations, and other politically disfavored but entirely legal enterprises.

Senator Kennedy explains the issue well: “My STREAMLINE Act cuts red tape and modernizes these requirements, so law enforcement can focus on real criminals—not debanking hardworking Americans or drowning our financial institutions in burdensome paperwork.”

The legislation raises the currency transaction reporting threshold to $30,000 and adjusts the suspicious activity thresholds to $3,000 and $10,000 respectively. We would recommend moving even further; nonetheless, the legislation represents an important move in the right direction.  It also requires Treasury to adjust these amounts every five years for inflation, preventing another five-decade freeze.

The coalition supporting the STREAMLINE Act is impressive: Chairman Tim Scott and Senators Crapo, Rounds, Hagerty, Lummis, Britt, Ricketts, and Moreno have all signed on, alongside major banking associations. This broad support reflects a simple truth (in banking and beyond): outdated regulations don’t protect Americans; they harm them by making things more expensive, less accessible, and increasingly politicized.

Louisiana and America need leaders willing to challenge regulatory overreach with practical solutions. Senator Kennedy has delivered exactly that. The STREAMLINE Act will enhance law enforcement by allowing investigators to focus on genuine threats rather than wading through millions of low-value reports generated by inflation-eroded thresholds.

This is what liberty looks like when it confronts the Leviathan: clear-eyed reform that respects both security and freedom, that modernizes without compromising, and that trusts Americans to conduct their financial affairs without government surveillance of routine transactions. Senator Kennedy deserves Louisiana’s gratitude for championing this essential legislation.