This week, the Trump Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) terminated its previous order for the Navy Federal Credit Union to return $80 million to customers who had been charged illegal overdraft fees.
Today a group of 193 civil rights, community, consumer, labor, faith-based, small business, farm, and other organizations urged the Senate to stand up for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and oppose devastating attacks on its budget and independence in the budget reconciliation bill.
Americans for Financial Reform endorses Rep. Green’s “Systemic Risk Authority Transparency Act” that would require banking agencies to report any future uses of the systemic risk exception under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.
The House majority has just chosen to prioritize Wall Street and billionaires over everyday people by advancing legislation that would strip away funds for healthcare and nutrition to give big corporations and the super-rich tax breaks. Adding insult to injury, they also voted to make people’s lives harder and less secure by giving Wall Street, big banks, and abusive financial companies free rein to fleece the rest of us.
Today, the House Financial Services Committee completed a two-day markup of 25 bills, the bulk of which seek to undermine investor protections, threaten the securities market stability, and erode safety and soundness of the banking system. Much of the legislation advanced in these mark-ups fulfills specific recommendations by the extremist Project 2025.
Today, the House voted to rubber stamp bank mergers and accelerate the consolidation of the banking industry, harming depositors, small businesses, and communities. The vote is a giant gift to Wall Street banks and corporate monopolists. The repeal of this rule further threatens the stability of our banking and financial system and leaves families, communities, small businesses, and consumers more vulnerable to increased costs to access banking and financial services.
The Senate voted to advance the GENIUS Act (S. 1582) for a full Senate vote, despite clear evidence that this legislation makes investors and consumers less financially secure, threatens to destabilize our financial system, and would legitimize Trump’s crypto grifts. Trump corruption led Democrats to oppose the legislation on May 8, but the bill has not meaningfully changed. And since then, more details have emerged about his family’s business.
This week brought the big, brutal budget reconciliation bill into sharper focus as the Congressional Majority advanced tax cuts for the super-rich paid for by and severe cuts to healthcare and nutrition assistance through key committees. The combination of tax giveaways to those who need it least and benefit cuts slashing support for basic human needs t are a recipe for catastrophe for most of the country.
The Senate overturned a tiny but critical regulatory change by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that eliminated two relics from over 25 years ago: the automatic approval of bank mergers and the expedited review of bank merger applications. These deeply flawed 1996 regulations rubber-stamped bank mergers and ushered in a merger wave that massively consolidated the banking industry, created too-big-to-fail megabanks, and contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
Proposals from the House Financial Services Committee majority for budget reconciliation would defund and dramatically erode the effectiveness of key financial regulators under the pretense of generating budgetary savings as part of the House majority’s broader plan to pay for tax cuts for the very richest families, biggest business, and Wall Street firms. The real intention is to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the other agencies designed to reduce the likelihood and severity of future financial crises.