AFR shared maps and statistics with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee prior to two hearings this month on the insurance crisis, which is compounded by climate change.
“Dropping cases like this against Heights Finance, where a predatory lender was picking the pockets of working class people, signals that it’s okay to pick on the little guy,” Zinner said.
Wall Street’s revolving door has spun more appointees from the private equity industry into the Trump administration than ever before. CEOs, founders, and even family members have been tapped to spearhead some of the very institutions that regulate or contract their own companies.
This week, Congress will start considering the tax provisions of the reconciliation legislation, Trump’s “big beautiful bill” that will slash safety net programs and further dismantle agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in order to pay for tax breaks for wealthy families and corporations.
Recently, some of the most politically influential industries — fossil fuels, firearms, private prisons, crypto — have been crying foul about so-called debanking, accusing banks of unjustly denying them financial services because of supposed political biases. This is part of a larger misinformation campaign that is hijacking civil rights language to frame powerful industries as victims of discrimination and achieve their deregulatory goals.
Last week, the Trump CFPB announced plans to stop enforcing its previously issued Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) interpretive rule, which improves the price transparency of these loans to help people understand the real costs, fees, and charges that can accrue. This step risks amplifying the harms of BNPL loans, which include lower credit scores, lost bank accounts, and predatory fees. And it represents yet another example of the Trump CFPB actively siding with predatory lenders.
Earlier today, Russell Vought, Trump’s acting director, announced plans to begin the withdrawal of 67 measures undertaken by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from the past fifteen years, across areas including credit reports, consumer complaints, credit cards, and servicemember rights.
The Senate thankfully blocked plans to fast-track legislation that would have emboldened the crypto conflicts of interest crisis that are emanating from the White House. This toothless legislation posed real risks for consumers and the financial system, but a vote to advance this legislation would have rewarded the President for enriching himself and his family through a crypto business empire.
“Public pension funds are one of the biggest sources of capital for private equity firms,” says Oscar Valdés Viera, who analyzes private equity at Americans for Financial Reform. “Workers indirectly fund private equity’s predatory practices through their pension funds. The private equity billionaires benefit from tax loopholes and giveaways that the rest of us do not get,” he says, pointing out the carried interest tax deduction, which allows private equity managers to get much of their income taxed at the lower long-term capital gains tax rate than the ordinary income tax rate.
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.