Informed debate is a crucial part of public policy development. But the behind-the-scenes tug of war between banks and the government over the results of their recent stress tests strains the already tenuous credibility of the exercise. It also shows that banks have become too powerful.

How so? First, banks and their regulators run stress tests all the time, on individual products, divisions and the institutions as a whole. Without them, it would be very difficult to manage risk or allocate capital among business lines. The current crisis proved these tests were inadequate  or in some cases, ignored by bank managers. But that’s largely because of management incentives to take excessive risks, and the failure of the tests to use sufficiently grim projections.

So it’s curious that regulators have put so much stock in the tests they announced in February. The release of their results has been delayed while banks ask for clemency. Since the results will determine which institutions will be forced to raise private capital or take further government infusions, the stakes are high.

But like the banks’ earlier and insufficiently stressful stress tests, the government’s worst-case outlooks aren’t all that far-fetched. They also use banks’ own estimates, meaning unscrupulous managers could tweak them to get a better grade. And bankers say they’ll produce very little information that regulators don’t already have.