AFR released the document below to provide context on the Congressional testimony of Federal Reserve vice-chair for supervision Randy Quarles, and highlight several areas which we believe Congress should question him about. AFR Backgrounder on Quarles Testimony
The AFR Advocacy Fund has released its voting record for 2017, the first year of the 115th Congress. “Where They Stand on Financial Reform” tracks more than 55 votes that gave House members and Senators a choice: They could decide to stand up for consumers, borrowers, investors and the safety, transparency, and accountability of the financial system. Or they could take the side of big banks and other powerful financial industry interests. Taken together, these votes show a disturbing readiness, on the part of many of those currently serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, to do the financial industry’s bidding without regard for harm to families and communities.
Opposition to the provisions of S. 2155, on banking supervision, on mortgage lending, and on mobile home financing is strong. And voters believe big banks still have too much influence in Congress.
On the first anniversary of the Trump administration, the Take on Wall Street coalition catalogs the ways that Wall Street made bank on Trump in 2017.
By overwhelming majorities, across party lines and geographies, the American public supports the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and rejects standard arguments against it.
The briefing paper linked below uses Penn-Wharton and IRS data to show how the financial sector is a big winner from the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, with almost $250 billion in tax benefits over the next decade flowing to financial firms just from the C-corporation provisions in the bill. Wall Street