AFR submitted an additional set of economic growth policy ideas to the Senate Banking Committee, in addition to previous submissions responding to the Committee’s call for ideas. The submitted document is linked below. AFR Additional Economic Growth Submission To Senate Banking Committee
“According to the advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, payday and title lenders spent more than $15 million on campaign contributions during the 2014 election cycle. The top recipient, with nearly $224,000 in donations from the industry, was the National Republican Congressional Committee. The largest individual recipient, with $210,500 in payday and title loan cash, was — you guessed it — Hensarling.”
“The [Hensarling] bill ‘would make it easier for Wall Street megabanks – plus other mortgage lenders, payday lenders, credit card companies and debt collectors . . . to make windfall profits by cheating people or putting the stability of the financial system at risk.’ That’s… from an email blast [the National Consumer Law Center] sent out in conjunction with Americans for Financial Reform.”
“When the CFPB was created in 2010 under the Dodd Frank Act, the appointment of an independent director was meant to help shield the agency from lobbying forces and powerful groups on Wall Street, says Brian Simmonds Marshall, policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform…”
“‘Without exception, the proposals we’ve seen to de-fund or restructure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are about making it less effective at doing its job,’ says Carter Dougherty, spokesman for Americans for Financial Reform… ‘All these proposed changes to the CFPB would do is make it easier for Wall Street and assorted predatory lenders to rip people off.'”
“Without exception, the proposals we’ve seen to de-fund or restructure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are about making it less effective at doing its job,” said Brian Marshall, policy counsel at AFR. “The agency has won relief worth $12 billion for 29 million Americans since it started work. All these proposed changes to the CFPB would do is make it easier for Wall Street and assorted predatory lenders to rip people off.”
From a statement by the Save our Retirement Coalition: “Retirement savers need an enforceable fiduciary standard and a Department of Labor that is prepared to hold firms accountable for compliance. Until the full complement of rule requirements takes effect, their hard earned savings will continue to be at risk as a result of conflicted advice from financial professionals who put their own financial interests ahead of their customers’ best interests. Yesterday’s decision was an important step forward, but there is still a long road ahead.”
In the face of supporting evidence described above, in addition to harming retirement savers, the Department would be exposing itself to significant legal risk to change course and further delay the Rule now.
“Alexis Goldstein, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform… described the idea of eliminating the program as ‘horrifying,’ noting that… borrowers are struggling to manage their student debt, pushing them to put off home-buying and other financial milestones. Eliminating a forgiveness program would only make that worse, she said. ‘It seems both ill-conceived from a policy perspective and just cruel.’”
Throwing up elaborate procedural hurdles isn’t a recipe for to good government. It’s a deliberate plan for increasing the control that Wall Street’s lobbyists have over government decision-making at the expense of the public interest.