U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said Wednesday current Securities and Exchange Commission proposals for money-market mutual fund reform “would not be helpful” and expressed confidence that the final regulations would be proper.

However, he warned if money market funds were destroyed, the country would pay a significant price.

Last year the SEC presented an array of options to try to improve the health of money market funds in a crisis including a proposal aimed at institutional investors that would allow the net asset value of funds to float the existing $1 price and giving funds the ability to apply fees and other restrictions when a run is threatened.

In a speech to the chamber’s annual capital markets summit in Washington, D.C., Donohue said financial regulators are stifling innovation that could aid consumers.

“Our first goal should be to give consumers access to a full array of choices to borrow and invest,” he said, cautioning too many resources are being siphoned away from innovation at financial service companies and placed into compliance.

Donohue said there must be an active effort to fight the view that capital markets are an instrument of inequality and an accident waiting to happen.

On money-market mutual fund reform, the group said the SEC should take into account the impact a floating NAV would have on accounting, tax and operational issues.