The review also calls for changes in the financing and management of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would reduce its independence and effectiveness. The bureau is the only federal agency with the sole purpose of protecting Americans in their dealings with lenders. Since 2011, it has returned $12 billion to millions of people — money that would have enriched lenders through excessive loan fees, predatory mortgages, deceptive student loan terms, discriminatory auto loans and abusive debt collection.

The new proposals will bolster the profitability of banks, at least in the short run, because riskier products and practices generate higher returns.

The Treasury review justifies the changes by saying regulatory burdens have depressed lending and economic growth. The evidence does not support that. Bank lending has increased at a healthy clip in the last five years. Perhaps it would have grown more without Dodd-Frank, but that is a reasonable price to pay for curtailing reckless lending.

The report also notes that Dodd-Frank has imposed high compliance costs on smaller banks that played no role in the crisis but must adhere to many of the law’s provisions. True, but it is not necessary to roll back the rules on big banks to give small banks relief.

Dodd-Frank is not perfect. For one thing, it is overly complex. And there are worthy reform alternatives that have been put forward that rely less on specific regulations and more on increased capital requirements and structural changes to separate traditional banking from speculative investing. These include a plan by Thomas Hoenig, the vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and one by Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.