Category Archives: In the News

Education Secretary Betsy Devos at the White House on July 9, 2020.Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Oped: Betsy Devos’ refusal to honor student loan forgiveness shows her disrespect for the law

“Even in a government full of people without the integrity, will or courage to do the right thing, most of the agencies stand down — or at least pretend to — when ordered by the courts. But not the Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos, who seems to have been only further animated by her losses in court over her efforts to deny the rightful debt cancellations owed to people who attended predatory, for-profit colleges, borrowers who are disproportionately women and people of color, and often now working in front-line jobs.”

Joint Letter: Public Interest Groups Call for Financial Regulation Moratorium

Every federal agency must dedicate all regulatory resources to addressing COVID-19 and the enforcement of rules meant to protect public health, consumers, investors and retirees, and the integrity and stability of the markets. The pursuit of any non-crisis-related rulemaking would be a misallocation of limited resources that distracts needed focus from U.S. public health and welfare, and financial stability.

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In The News: States Need Help From the Fed This Time (Bloomberg Opinion)

State and local governments are the main providers of basic public services in the U.S. They are on the front lines of combating the Covid-19 pandemic, the most serious public-health threat in a century. But it’s unlikely these governments will have the funds they need to fight the epidemic properly unless Congress acts to require the Federal Reserve to expand state and local fiscal powers.

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In The News: The fight to protect consumers, at a crossroads (The New York Daily News)

As Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, put it, last year, the CFPB “was constructed really deliberately to protect ordinary people,” and the Trump administration has “taken it apart — dismantled it, piece by piece, brick by brick.” I [Leandra English] am honored to join DFS Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell’s team to ensure that as Washington retreats, New York continues to lead.

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photo of Wall Street sign in NYC | Photo by Chris Li on Unsplash

In The News: A Majority of Democratic and Republican Voters Want Tougher Wall Street Regulations (Vox)

“I think really the most striking thing about this polling has been its consistency,” Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, told Vox. “The experience of the crisis was a really deep and serious one for people. It may have faded into memory of some policy makers and some regulators, unfortunately, but it has not faded in people’s memory because the experience was long-lasting for people.”

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In The News: Trump’s Latest Assault on the CFPB Could Backfire (Slate)

Kraninger is wildly unqualified to lead the CFPB: Before her confirmation, she had no experience in consumer protection or financial regulation. Civil rights groups and Wall Street watchdogs [AFR letter linked] uniformly opposed her, while the financial industry supported her—perceiving correctly that she would be, at best, a do-nothing director.

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In the News: Private Equity’s Role in Retail has Decimated 1.3 Million Jobs, Study Says (Washington Post)

In practice, that meant they often sold off real estate holdings, cut workers’ pay and benefits, and did away with jobs to turn a quick profit for investors, according to Heather Slavkin Corzo, a senior fellow at Americans for Financial Reform and the director of capital markets policy for the labor union AFL-CIO. “When a private equity firm steps in, it’s a classic case of ‘heads I win, tails you lose,” Corzo said. “They have a real short-term focus on extracting as much cash as possible, as quickly as possible.”

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