Senate Republicans voted to give Elon Musk and Big Tech the ability to operate payment apps without any meaningful oversight or accountability, a step that will leave millions vulnerable to financial predators and scammers.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund published a research memo, Private Equity’s Silicon Gold Rush, analyzing private equity’s surging investments in data centers used for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining, and cloud computing.
At the behest of the new Trump-appointed leadership, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has abandoned an enforcement case against megabank Capital One, a step that will cost consumers $2 billion in restitution.
On February 17, 2025, Delaware lawmakers proposed amendments to the state’s corporate law through Senate Bill 21 or the “Billionaires’ Bill” that would enable billionaires like Elon Musk to raid corporate treasuries at the expense of working people like teachers and construction workers counting on their pensions for a secure retirement. This Billionaires’ Bill was drafted by Elon Musk’s lawyers in secret and far outside the usual procedure for formulating changes to the state’s corporate law, which governs around two thirds of the corporations in the S&P 500.
In a webinar hosted by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) and The Horizon Project, leading labor and state officials laid out strategies to protect public pensions from federal attacks and deploy state pension power to grow a strong economy for retirees, workers, and the public.
In a letter sent to Congress today, more than 20 state and national groups raised alarms over two bills — the STABLE Act in the House and the GENIUS Act in the Senate — that attempt to create a new regulatory framework for so-called stablecoins.
This executive order is an unconstitutional power-grab that delegates supreme authority over congressionally-mandated, court-sanctioned statutes and regulatory safeguards to unelected, unnominated, unconfirmed bureaucrats.
The Trump White House unveiled a new executive order that illegally undermines the congressionally-mandated independence of federal agencies that have a statutory obligation to regulate impartially in order to protect the public. A fact sheet that accompanied the executive order singled out the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the stock markets, the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces antitrust law and consumer protection statutes, and the Federal Election Commission, which oversees electoral ethics and political spending.
The new staff purges at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will allow Wall Street, predatory lenders, and many other financial companies to rip off their own customers without any recourse to an agency that has won $21 billion in relief for consumers in its 14-year history.
Today, a comprehensive new joint report published by Americans for Tax Fairness, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund exposes the often destructive impacts of the private equity (PE) industry on consumers, workers, and communities. In addition to providing several first-person stories of the havoc wrought by private-equity investment, the report details how the tax code makes the industry even more profitable and wealthy PE owners even richer. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) recently introduced legislation that would close one of the industry’s most egregious tax loopholes.