For over 45 years, the disparate impact doctrine has allowed people to chip away at policies that have a discriminatory effect even if there is no intent to discriminate. When the need to address systemic racism is so urgent, and the costs of failing to do so are so devastating, HUD has chosen to finalize a rule that effectively dismantles this essential tool for fighting injustice.
A group of financial reform, labor, and public interest organizations today warned the Federal Reserve not to water down rules that limit the access of companies owned by private equity firms to emergency lending facilities created during the COVID-19 pandemic. Allies of the industry have pressed the Fed to loosen the affiliation rules for its new Main Street Lending Facility, a step that would ease the way for private equity to access public money despite its ready access to capital markets and uninvested capital.
A provision inserted by Sen. Mike Crapo, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, would encourage Trump-appointed regulators, who have already sought to reduce the minimum amounts of their own risk capital that banks have to hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, to go further. Sen. Susan Collins, sponsor of the part of Dodd-Frank in 2010 that Crapo wants to gut, has already filed an amendment that would strike the part of Republican bill that would make this change. The Senate should follow her lead and preserve minimum statutory thresholds for bank capital.
Private equity-owned and -backed nursing homes had higher COVID-19 infection and fatality rates for residents, and those same facilities had a disproportionate share of the COVID-19 resident and staff cases and deaths relative to public, non-profit, and other for-profit nursing homes in New Jersey, according to a new report from Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF).
The Proposal will impose new costs on beneficiaries, undermine American’s retirement security, and impede investment decisions that would lead to a more sustainable economy and society.
It is absolutely critical for the well-being of families, communities and the economy that homes are protected. Congress needs to enact measures to protect homeowners and renters, including the following mortgage protections, which our organizations have been advocating: