Aggressive re-regulation of U.S. banks is about three financial crises and one near-economic meltdown overdue. Legislation passed by the House last week is a start, but did not go nearly far enough.

A basic task is to once again separate investment banking from consumer banking because of the grievous loopholes that have U.S. taxpayers bailing out banks for all manner of risky investments. The government is even providing the low-interest loans for the speculation.

Depression-era barriers to mixing those activities were repealed in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999. Both political parties were dirty, nobody was clean and the path of the legislation was a tutorial in campaign financing.

Unleashed from substantive regulatory oversight, the reckless behavior of the gamblers was only limited by their imaginations: collateralized debt obligations, credit-default swaps, subprime mortgages and other lucrative flights of creative lending and investing.

After the collapse, they were rescued by the same taxpaying consumers they abused, and then got huffy when regulators insisted they maintain larger reserves to protect against losses and tighten — or actually employ — borrowing standards and procedures.

In a snit, the banks have refused to lend money provided to them by those taxpayers/consumers because of the new rules. President Obama spanked the bankers in public, and now they are hustling to pay back the government so they can avoid rules and give themselves raises for jobs well done.

Instead of debating whether banks and financial institutions can be too big to fail, reimpose the rules embodied in the 1933 Glass-Steagall banking act that protected the nation's financial infrastructure for the next half century. Take the dice out of their hands.

The House legislation has all sorts of barn-door-closing language to increase regulation of the financial industry. The American Bankers Association is particularly upset about a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, so that must be worth having. A Financial Stability Council is supposed to provide the equivalent of early-warning radar on financial markets. The Government Accountability Office would get to second-guess the Federal Reserve.

Credit-rating agencies that sold their endorsements to the highest bidders would get to continue their fee-for-fibs business, a line of work that competes with the world's oldest profession.

All of this has to pass the Senate, which means there is still ample opportunity for stalling, watering down, obfuscation and campaign fundraising.

Regulating commercial banks is a matter of reimposing rules, regulations and reserves. Let the investment bankers gamble their own money in isolation, away from government-backed assets and taxpayer risk.