“From the beginning of this republic, even the most humble citizen was entitled to their day in court and a fair hearing. And at no point, until the creation of forced arbitration did someone say, ‘Hey you can have a right to your day in court except when your complaint is about a big corporation,” said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.
It also has the support of labor and financial-policy groups, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and National Nurses United. Lisa Donner, executive director of financial watchdog group Americans for Financial Reform, said the bill “takes important, much-needed steps to rein in Wall Street predatory practices and promote a more just and sustainable economy.”
Researchers at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Global Energy Monitor and Private Equity Stakeholder Project assessed the holdings of 21 private equity firms, overseeing a combined $6tn in assets under management.
“Congress should pressure Postmaster General DeJoy and the USPS Board of Governors to reverse course, and instead of another mail slow down, reinstate the 2012 mail delivery service standards. They must not stray even one step away from USPS’s universal service obligation: to deliver the mail to everyone, in every ZIP code. USPS is a public service for all, and a lifeline for many, especially rural America.”
Natalia Renta, senior policy counsel, Americans for Financial Reform: “Taxes are a very big issue. The Trump tax cuts were a significant giveaway to big corporations and billionaires and Wall Street. We’re standing very close to a tax fight in 2025 and we’ll be having a big fight about what type of country we want to live in and whether corps and wall street should pay their fair share or whether public servants and teachers should pay a higher tax rate.”
The lone DeFi sceptic on the witness panel, Mark Allen Hays — a senior policy analyst with consumer advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform — agreed that security issues plague DeFi projects. But “the problem goes deeper,” he said, adding that many hacks are inside jobs set up by the founders themselves. These could be addressed by existing rules under US securities regulation, he said, which demands disclosures from regulated entities.