“The majority on the Senate Finance Committee has chosen to ignore lies and evasions, to ram through a nomination in defiance of its own procedures, and to all vote YES despite both the known facts about Steven Mnuchin’s bank’s abusive and sometimes illegal foreclosure practices, and serious unanswered questions on this and other matters. The minority on the committee did the right thing in demanding responses before a vote, every remaining Senator should demand the same before a floor vote is scheduled, and they should vote no when it comes before them. The country needs a Treasury Secretary who will stand up for the public interest, not another representative of Wall Street in government.”
“It is crucial that any nominee for Education Secretary of the Department of Education not only affirm the need to enforce existing rules that seek to protect both students and taxpayers from fraud, but also clearly articulate plans to rapidly pursue additional automatic group discharges. Betsy DeVos has done neither. Americans for Financial Reform urges the members of the Senate to reject Betsy DeVos’s nomination as Secretary of the Department of Education.”
On January 9, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action against two law firms, and their president, for lying when collecting medical debts from thousands of patients. The Oklahoma firms (Works & Lentz) attempt collection on approximately 700,000 debts totaling more than $500 million annually. The CFPB charged Works & Lentz with violating
Navient’s CEO Jack Remondi lashed out at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for daring to do its job to protect student loan borrowers from up to $4 billion in unnecessary interest charges caused by Navient’s illegal servicing practices. Remondi’s complaints are a deceptive and self-interested attempt to evade responsibility for breaking the law.
“In recent years bank lobbyists have started to blame Wall Street regulatory reforms such as those
passed in the Doddd-Frank Act for slow economic growth. But the claim that better financial
oversight is responsible for a poor economic recovery has no foundation. It ignores not only the
devastating economic costs of the financial crisis itself, but key facts about the performance of
the U.S. economy and the profitability of the financial sector since Dodd-Frank passed.”
“Faced with the prospect that millions of Americans will run out of money in retirement and become a burden on government, the U.S. government took action last year to try to take some confusion out of the advice business. The Department of Labor is imposing what’s known as the ‘fiduciary rule’ to improve the chances that when an adviser gives money advice it’s actually untainted advice — best for you, and not a disguised sales pitch.”
