“It’s basically a way to finance state and local investment that doesn’t go through Wall Street and doesn’t leave the community and turn into a windfall for shareholders,” said Porter McConnell, the campaign director of advocacy group Take On Wall Street. “This is more about community development.”
It has been more than ten years since the Obama Administration signed into law the Dodd Frank Act, a set of modest financial regulations that were meant to address the causes of the Great Recession. Since then many of the regulations have been weakened and whittled down. But a new poll finds strong public support, across the political spectrum for Wall Street to be held to account.
There’s a looming student debt cliff awaiting us in 2021. With America in the teeth of the Covid-19–enabled economic downturn, lawmakers suspended federal student loan payments for 80 percent of federal student loan borrowers. This measure, which President Donald Trump extended a few weeks ago, is set to expire on New Year’s Eve, which means borrowers will ring in the new year by restarting their student loan payments in one of the worst job markets in a decade.
Wall Street has consistently opposed the return of postal banking since its destruction in the 1960s. Chase and other nefarious actors are attempting to prevent competition before it even forms. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform and Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force recommendations both call for postal banking. But they also call on policymakers to separate retail banking institutions from more risky investments and protect consumers from high rates, onerous fees, inequitable credit reporting, and other harms.
“So many fundamental decisions about how the economy works, and who it works for, and who is excluded are made through the decisions we make about finance,” [AFR Executive Director Lisa Donner] said. “There is a huge opportunity to have a transformative impact.”
“At these prices, this is not a market screaming, ‘We need help from the Fed,’” said Andrew Park, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, which advocates for tighter financial rules on Wall Street.