AFR policy director Marcus Stanley testified to the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission on progress in financial regulation Testimony Before Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission — Marcus Stanley AGENDA and VIDEO (See December 5th Meeting): http://dls.maryland.gov/policy-areas/maryland-financial-consumer-protection-commission
On Friday, Senate Republicans passed a bill with some $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, overwhelmingly weighted to the wealthiest Americans. The bill lavishes tax cuts on Wall Street banks, on executives who can manipulate their legal status to obtain a lower tax rate, and on operations in foreign tax havens. In contrast, ordinary Americans earning wages and salaries receive very limited benefits, and in many cases will see their taxes increased.
AFR sent a letter urging Senators to reject S 2155, which contains some two dozen deregulatory gifts to bank lobbyists and only minimal consumer benefits AFR Opposition Letter to S 2155
“This bill would undermine already vulnerable homeowners by stripping away protections created by Congress and implemented by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). These protections were put in place for a reason: to give manufactured-homeowners the same protections as traditional homeowners.”
Today, Rep. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, introduced a bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) that includes language that opens the floodgates to waste, fraud, and abuse by for-profit colleges.
“Attempts to roll back this protection for consumers are nothing more than a sellout to the predatory payday lenders who want to continue to enrich themselves by trapping people in a painful cycle of debt. Congress should reject this and other attempts by payday lenders to undo a common sense rule based on the common sense principle of ability to repay.”
In the meantime, the CFPB still has work to do holding Wall Street to account on behalf of American consumers, and Ms. English and the CFPB staff can continue its successful run. Now, the president should nominate someone with a track record of fighting for consumers who will enjoy bipartisan support in the Senate.
“The Trump Administration’s actions prove that it is far less interested in protecting investors from the harmful effects of conflicts of interest than it is in catering to Wall Street interests… By stripping out the rule’s private enforcement mechanism, and by stating that the Department won’t enforce the rule, the DOL has rendered the rule toothless.”
Mulvaney has said he is opposed to the very existence of the CFPB, and as a member of Congress he voted in favor of Wall Street banks and predatory lenders — his largest donors — again and again. The CFPB has recovered $12 billion in ill-gotten gains on behalf people around this country. It is this work that the administration apparently wants to destroy
“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, we are writing to express our support for proposed changes…by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors… to the FR Y-15 systemic risk reporting form… regarding the treatment of cleared over-the-counter derivatives transactions.”