Causing a furor before it exists
James Lardner (Remapping Debate)
May 12, 2011

“With the passage of last year’s Dodd-Frank reform law, the 111th Congress called for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now, two months before its scheduled launch date, the ascendant Republicans of the 112th Congress are trying to limit the bureau’s power by making basic changes to its authority and architecture…. The CFPB is needed, said Lisa Donner, who oversees a consumer-labor coalition known as Americans for Financial Reform, ‘both in order to make sure that people aren’t gouged and treated unfairly day to day, and because if they’re allowed to be treated unfairly and gouged in the consumer market, that can be, and just was, profoundly risky for the system as a whole.’… Ed Mierzwinski, a Washington-based consumer advocate, pointed out that Dodd-Frank assigns such questions to the shared jurisdiction of the CFPB and the Federal Reserve, thus putting some check on the new agency’s power…. What accounts for the intensity of the distrust? Why all the talk about consumer protection overriding safety-and-soundness? The issue is a legitimate one in some situations, said Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America.” Click here for more.