To wrap up Week 1 of our #30Issues in 30 Weeks series, Barney Frank, a former U.S. Congressman (D-MA) and the author of Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), looks back at The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a law he helped introduce in 2010 as a response to the Great Recession.

Frank, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, criticized Bernie Sanders for "vague" proposals. He said Sanders has said the solution is to reduce the big banks to a certain size but has failed to point to an actual number cap.

Frank reacted to the news from earlier this week that the Federal Reserve has deemed the living wills of 5 out of our 8 largest banks unsatisfactory.

"That's a sign it's working," he said, referring to his law. Frank said this shows that the banks are under tough scrutiny and have been put on notice for failing to provide satisfactory living wills, and if they don't improve regulators can step in.

Here's how he explained Dodd-Frank, paraphrased:

Under the old law, if a large institution is unable to pay its debts, the fed would step in, pay, and keep it alive. Under Dodd-Frank, the institution would be allowed to fail and go out of business. At that point, the federal government may decide to pay some of those debts using funds from other institutions.

Frank said that Sanders' plan to break up the banks could result in smaller institutions that are maybe too small to serve international business. "The problem is not size alone. The problem is an institution that is so indebted that it cannot pay it off. And part of what we do is to say: 'You can't get so indebted.'"