Letters to the Administration: Letter Calling on President Biden to Extend the Student Loan Payment Pause
AFR joined a letter calling on President Biden to extend the payment pause on student loans until he cancels student debt.
AFR joined a letter calling on President Biden to extend the payment pause on student loans until he cancels student debt.
AFREF joined over 100 other groups in sending a letter urging President Biden to cancel student debt.
AFR sent a letter urging the Biden Administration to take a faster pace in filling key regulatory and financial policy positions. The letter calls out how the Administration’s slow pace in these appointments has undermined its racial justice and climate change agendas.
Americans for Financial Reform joined a letter to the Biden administration highlighting the critical budget-related items that would help consumers in any upcoming Covid legislation. The letter urged President Biden to halt garnishment and offset certain tax refunds, fund a Housing Assistance Fund and housing counseling, and cancel student debt.
If he’s confirmed to run the SEC, there will be a lot that needs fixing, says Marcus Stanley, who worked with Gensler as a Senate staffer after the financial crisis. Stanley is now the policy director of Americans for Financial Reform. “It’s an absolutely critical regulator,” says Stanley, about the SEC. But, he says, “the SEC as an organization needs some change.” He says perhaps more than any other regulator, the SEC “continued with its pre-2008 record of deregulation, even after the financial crisis.”
Americans for Financial Reform joined a letter to the Biden Administration urging them not to weaken the securities laws through the further expansion and deregulation of the private offering marketplace. The letter warns that further expanding the pool of securities exempt from the disclosure and investor protections afforded by the federal securities laws has the potential to damage economic recovery, including by increasing the probability of fraud and hindering the efficient allocation of capital.
We applaud the nomination of Rohit Chopra to lead the CFPB. His commitment to consumer protection, his effectiveness at using the tools of government to serve the public interest, and his willingness to challenge powerful corporate interests when necessary are exactly what the Bureau needs to fulfill its crucial consumer protection mission.
“There’s an emphasis on working people, racial justice and inequality, and that’s a good place to start,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy group that met with Ms. Yellen this month. “But reversing things that the current Treasury Department has done is not enough.”
AFR joined a letter urging President-Elect Biden to expand assistance to homeowners in the upcoming COVID-19 relief package. The letter called on the Biden administration to support the establishment of a Housing Assistance Fund, provide funding for HUD-approved housing counseling agencies and legal assistance, and to support several legislative measures to prevent the coming tsunami of foreclosures that likely will be concentrated in low-income communities and communities of color.
The billionaires and millionaires of Wall Street deploy so much money to influence American politics and society that we can easily lose track of how pervasive it is. They spread money around to campaigns, think tanks, and lobbyists. Wealthy executives finance universities, cultural institutions, and hospitals. And this historical moment has laid bare for all to see that Wall Street also finances a virulently anti-democratic strain in American politics, one that always takes aim at people of color.