FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Carter Dougherty
carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org
(202) 251-6700
Americans for Financial Reform, a broad coalition including civil rights groups, consumer advocates, community organizations, and labor unions, today called on the Trump administration to abandon its proposal to delay a planned rule that protects ordinary investors from unscrupulous financial advisers.
“This common-sense rule, long in the making, will ensure that American retirement savers get advice that’s in their best interest, not options that enrich Wall Street brokers,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. “It will put more than $17 billion a year back into retiree savings.
The Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, as it is known, is set to take effect on April 10, but the Trump administration has proposed delaying that date for 60 days, and has signaled its intent to kill the regulation outright. Even the delay for those two months would cost Americans $3.7 billion over 30 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Alexander Acosta, Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Labor, should publicly recant the Trump administration’s plans to delay or destroy the fiduciary rule at his confirmation hearing on March 22.
AFR will today file comments with the department in which Marcus Stanley, AFR’s policy director, argued against this damaging delay:
“The Administration’s desire to overturn the rule cannot itself serve as the justification for delaying the rule. The finalizing of this rule, including its implementation date, under the protocols of the Administrative Procedure Act involved thousands of hours of work by both DOL employees and by outside organizations such as AFR which invested extensive effort in commenting on the details of rule proposals. It makes a mockery of these efforts to simply postpone the rule’s implementation date without policy justification.”
The voices against delaying or weakening the fiduciary rule have been rising up from around the country, from all sorts of people. A fiduciary adviser in Coronado, California. A San Antonio, Texas editorial board. Self-help guru Tony Robbins. Money Magazine. A St. Louis, Missouri consumer advocate. A New Albany, Indiana attorney. The conservative Weekly Standard. A prominent tech entrepreneur. A columnist at The New York Times finds attacks on the fiduciary rule odd for a president who claims to represent the little guy.
A wide variety of groups from around the country are also writing to the department to oppose delaying the rule. They include the National Council of La Raza, the Temple Chapel AME, the Kansas State Council of the Service Employees International Union, the Montana Organizing Project, the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and the Sisters of Loretto in Colorado. The Consumer Federation of America, the CFP board and the AFL-CIO will also weigh in.