ColorOfChange, Working Families, Center for Popular Democracy and Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) delivered over 50,000 petitions urging Congress not to pass H.R. 1737, which would block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from working to fight discrimination in car loans.
“These deregulatory measures are on the committee’s docket only as a result of massive lobbying by large financial institutions seeking a license to continue playing the kinds of heads-they-win-tails-we-lose games that were at heart of the financial crisis. Lawmakers need to decide whether to let the financial industry have its way or stand up for the public interest.”
With a government shutdown narrowly averted and budget negotiations moving into a potentially volatile final stage, more than 160 national, state and local organizations are telling lawmakers and the Administration not to let the process be used to force through ideological spending riders that would block financial reform or undermine the funding or authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced yesterday that it has finalized a set of updated HMDA rules that should significantly improve the quality and value of this data, deepening public understanding of the mortgage market and advancing efforts to make credit available fairly, safely, and broadly.”
“Closing the carried interest loophole should be among the first items considered in the ongoing negotiations to prevent the damaging and indiscriminate sequester cuts and to invest in critical programs that support low- and middle-income Americans,” the organizations wrote in the letter. “The carried interest loophole is an egregious violation of the principle of tax fairness.”
“These are matters of vital public significance, and it is a sign of progress that they are on the public agenda for the 2016 election… In a number of important areas, however, the plan largely restates existing law or practice, or reiterates commitments that regulators have already made. As a totality it does not go far enough to address the scale and scope of the problems of our financial system. “
“Class actions, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg explained in 1997, create room for “vindication of the rights of groups of people who individually would be without effective strength” to object to wrongdoing. Leaving consumers without “effective strength” is precisely the point of the class-action bans found more and more often in contracts governing student and payday loans, credit and prepaid cards, and other financial products and services.”
“The committee’s approval of these bills had not been in doubt. In fact, there had been speculation that in one or more cases, a substantial number of Democrats might join the Republican majority in their support. But that did not happen… HR 414 passed on a straight party-line vote, while HR 1090 won the backing of only a single Democrat… and HR 1266 just two… That qualifies as a victory.”
“Industry forces made a big effort to win more Democratic votes. But in the end, they fell short: the Financial Services Committee approved HR 1266, but in a largely partisan vote that dimmed its prospects for becoming law. With their hard push, however, the bill’s backers made it very clear just who is pushing for a commission instead of a single director, and why.”
“We urge you to reject any such proposal that weakens or delays these crucial protections, whether it is based on H.R. 1090 or a phony Wall Street ‘alternative’ to DOL rules. Instead, you should stand with your hard-working constituents saving for retirement who deserve financial advice that is in their best interest, no matter who provides it.”