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Nearly five years after the financial crisis, a new national poll – conducted on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending – shows continued bipartisan support for tougher regulation of the financial industry and its products and services. A sweeping majority of voters (78%) believe that financial rules and enforcement need to be strengthened, and that Wall Street’s bad practices have not changed enough.
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AFR sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to reject HR 3913, HR 4042, HR 5148, and HR 5018. These pieces of legislation contain dangerous deregulatory measures that would harm consumers.
In a joint editorial, Americans for Financial Reform and the Cato Institute criticize the Federal Reserve for not properly implementing new statutory limits on emergency lending programs, to prevent their use in future bank bailouts. “It is impossible to read the proposal and see how it limits Federal Reserve discretion,” say AFR’s Marcus Stanley and Cato’s Mark Calabria. “With the exception of a few actions aimed at single institutions, it appears that the actions taken in 2008, which so angered the public would still be feasible under the proposed rule.”
Wall Street banks and financial trade groups are on track to outdo their 2010 lobbying efforts in Washington by so far dishing out $800 million during the current campaign cycle, according to a just-released report.
Americans for Financial Reform, California Reinvestment Coalition, National Fair Housing Alliance, National People’s Action, New Economy Project, and Woodstock Institute praised the CFPB for proposing “a number of positive steps to improve the range and detail of mortgage application and lending information available to financial regulators and the public.” This kind of data, the statement says, “is crucial for regulators and the public to understand the mortgage market, who does and does not have access to credit, and on what terms.”
“This past year has seen significant advances on key issues of financial reform,” Mike Konczal writes in The New Republic, and “the issues where regulators are reluctant to take strong action are becoming increasingly apparent.” His article goes on to quote AFR Policy Director Marcus Stanley on the failure to “ban incentive pay that encourages inappropriate risk-taking, impose appropriate limits on the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending powers, bring real accountability to the credit rating agencies, and simplify the structure of global Wall Street mega-banks to ensure that they can be resolved safely.”
AFR joined 40 consumer rights organizations in sending a letter to members of Congress applauding the work of the CFPB over the last three years.
AFR issued a statement on the final SEC rule on money market funds. AFR feels that these reforms are inadequate, and encourages the SEC to work with other regulators to address remaining systemic risks related to money market funds.
“Nearly four out of five voters surveyed (78%) said financial rules and enforcement need to be strengthened, and that Wall Street’s bad practices have not changed enough,” writes David Weidner of the Wall Street Journal, citing a new poll conducted by Lake Research for Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending. “And the furor overrides the political divide we’ve been hearing so much about. The poll found 84% of Dmocrats, 82% of Independents and 74% of Republicans say they are concerned about the influence of Wall Street financial companies on elected officials.”
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