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2017 Voting Record: Where They Stand on Financial Reform
The AFR Advocacy Fund has released its voting record for 2017, the first year of the 115th Congress. “Where They Stand on Financial Reform” tracks more than 55 votes that gave House members and Senators a choice: They could decide to stand up for consumers, borrowers, investors and the safety, transparency, and accountability of the financial system. Or they could take the side of big banks and other powerful financial industry interests. Taken together, these votes show a disturbing readiness, on the part of many of those currently serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, to do the financial industry’s bidding without regard for harm to families and communities.
Stop the Debt Trap Statement: Mulvaney Continues to Let Payday Lenders Off the Hook
Trump’s unlawfully appointed Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Mick Mulvaney is giving predatory payday lenders a free pass. Specifically, National Credit Adjusters, a debt collector for payday loan companies with 685 complaints against it, confirmed that a pending case against the company is “dead.”
AFR Statement: Omnibus Contains Yet More Gifts to Wall Street
“The Omnibus budget package contains several policy riders designed to benefit Wall Street investment funds and big banks at the expense of the public. One provision in the omnibus allows Business Development Companies (BDCs), a type of private equity fund sold directly to retail customers, to double their permitted fund leverage from the current 1-1 level (one dollar of borrowed money for each dollar of investor equity) to 2-1. BDCs are already the beneficiary of regulatory exemptions since conventional closed-end mutual funds can only leverage 1-2, or borrow one dollar per two dollars of investor equity…”
Letter to Congress: AFR Opposes Six Bills in 3/21 House Financial Services Committee Markup
AFR sent a letter opposing six bills — HR 4659, HR 4790, HR 4861, HR 5051, HR 5082, and HR 5323 — being voted on in the March 21st House Financial Services Committee markup. These bills would endanger both consumer and systemic risk protections. AFR
Letter to Congress: Oppose HR 4566
AFR sent a letter to the House opposing passage of HR 4566, which would eliminate stress testing of non-banks under Title 1 of the Dodd-Frank Act AFR floor oppo letter HR 4566
S 2155: A Gift to Wall Street!
Bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate chose to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by handing the bank lobby a package of deregulatory gifts, increasing the risks to financial stability and the likelihood of consumer abuse, including racial discrimination in lending. This legislation, signed into law on May 24, won’t serve families or communities, nor is it policy that most people support. But Wall Street and its friends in Congress had a tougher time than they ever expected because Americans who know better refused to let the bill pass without a fight.
AFR in the News: Congress rides to the rescue of thriving bankers (Politico)
“I don’t see the real-world problem [the bill] is trying to solve, except the problem of bankers’ not making enough money,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform… [Stanley] said competition alone shouldn’t be the goal. “If we didn’t require airlines to do anything before opening up a new air route, there might be more airlines, but there might be more plane crashes too.”
AFR Statement: Secretary Devos Once Again Puts Servicers Before Students
The ability for states to enact laws governing how servicers may interact with borrowers, and the ability of state Attorneys General to file lawsuits against servicers for consumer abuses, are crucial accountability mechanisms that must continue. That the Department would attempt in any way to prevent these state level efforts to defend borrowers simply shows that under Betsy DeVos, it is servicers before students.
AFR in the news: Dems Team Up with GOP to Weaken Bank Rules (Democracy Now!)
AFR’s senior policy analyst Alexis Goldstein joined Democracy Now! to discuss the dangers of S. 2155, a bill the Senate is considering that would encourage discrimination in lending, roll back rules on large U.S. and giant foreign banks, and make further bailouts more likely.