Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said U.S. regulators should scale back the federal safety net, which expanded to cover more than half the financial system during the credit crisis.

“My broad sense is that we would be better off if we were to significantly scale back the boundaries of the government- managed portion of the financial sector to include fewer institutions and their respective liabilities,” Lacker said today in the text of a speech at the Ferrum College Forum in Roanoke, Va.