The CFPB was created after the 2008 financial crisis to bring basic standards of fairness and transparency to the consumer finance marketplace. Five years later, our organizations join in celebrating the important changes the CFPB has already made, and in eager anticipation of the work to come.
Ninety-six percent of Democrats and 89 percent of Republicans regard financial regulation as important, according to the survey, which was conducted in June by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending. Here
Chicago leaders and national organizations joined together to deliver a petition in which over 80,000 Americans asked the SEC to investigate the toxic swap deals squeezing cities and states across the country.
“Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and many members of our coalition and allies have long pressed for significant changes to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) sales of distressed mortgages so that the program better serves homeowners and communities, and we welcome yesterday’s announcement of a number of promising reforms. “
“Today, Senators Mark Warner and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Congressman Elijah Cummings have introduced an important new piece of legislation that takes a comprehensive approach to addressing failures in oversight of the $500 trillion global derivatives market, and would go far to protect the public against the risks of another disastrous meltdown in critical financial markets.”
“If these measures became law, long and painful experience suggests they would cause capital to move from sound and regulated investments into dangerous and unregulated investments. The net effect would be to weaken regulatory oversight, reduce transparency, and generally undermine the regulatory framework that helped make America’s financial markets the deepest, most vibrant markets in the world.”
“Speaker Ryan’s plan to ‘Grow the Economy’ would roll back consumer protections affecting everything from subprime mortgages to payday loans, empower Wall Street lawyers to overturn financial regulatory rules in dozens of new ways, and eliminate post-crisis regulatory powers to control risks at the giant ‘too big to fail’ institutions that dominate Wall Street.”
“For years, advocates have urged the Department of Education to relieve the staggering debt of students who attended for-profit colleges like Corinthian which broke the law. Today, the Department released a forward-looking proposal outlining how students who were victims of illegal acts by their school may pursue a ‘borrower defense to repayment,’ or cancellation of the debt on their federal student loans. We look forward to working with the Department to improve the final proposal so that all students victimized by unlawful and deceptive conduct receive every penny of relief they deserve.”
“The House Appropriations Committee has approved a funding bill packed with riders that would roll back financial reform and undermine consumer protection. These ideological policy provisions have no business being added to such a measure. “
“[T]his plan doesn’t get tough on banks; it gets tough on the regulators policing them. It would dramatically weaken their ability to do their jobs, and make it correspondingly easier for Wall Street banks, shadow banks, and lending companies to profit by ripping off consumers and engaging in reckless and dangerous short term speculation, rather than by providing loans, capital, and financial services on fair and transparent terms.”