“Lisa Donner, head of Americans for Financial Reform… dismissed the notion that Congress needs to re-debate the agency’s structure. ‘Each month that goes by, it’s easier to make the case that CFPB is doing its job,’ Donner said. ‘These questions have been asked and answered.’”
It’s “a form of agency leadership that has been shown again and again to produce weak regulation and enforcement at best, and partisan gridlock at worst,” said Jim Lardner of AFR. “The commission idea is being promoted by an alliance of financial industry lobbyists and lawmakers who have been out to undermine the Bureau’s effectiveness ever since they failed to block its creation.”
“Industry forces made a big effort to win more Democratic votes. But in the end, they fell short: the Financial Services Committee approved HR 1266, but in a largely partisan vote that dimmed its prospects for becoming law. With their hard push, however, the bill’s backers made it very clear just who is pushing for a commission instead of a single director, and why.”
CFPB Director Richard Cordray accepted delivery yesterday of a set of birthday-card-style petitions in which more than 13,500 Americans expressed their support and gratitude for the Bureau’s efforts “to safeguard American consumers, families and communities against the deceptive and abusive practices of big banks, cred card companies, and unscrupulous lenders.” The signatures were gathered by Americans for Financial Reform, National People’s Action, and the Center for Popular Democracy.
“A funding measure approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday contains an outrageous sneak attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the reforms of the Dodd-Frank Act. The FY2016 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill incorporates the entirety of a 229-page financial deregulation bill – one that had been rejected by every Democrat on the Banking Committee, the proper venue for such legislation.”
“The financial system that pushed the U.S. economy to the edge of collapse in 2008 was a doubly rigged game. It was set up to inflate the profits of banks and insiders twice over—first through products designed to bilk consumers and investors, and second through massive speculation, with taxpayers ultimately paying for the bets that went bad. It was a dishonest system and a dangerous one, and while Dodd-Frank was not a complete fix for either problem, it has made progress on both.”
“In addition to [a] dangerous and highly partisan rollback of financial regulations, the legislation takes aim at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that is succeeding at its job of making the consumer finance markets safer and fairer. The appropriations bill contains policy riders that would dramatically weaken the CFPB by making it the only bank regulator which does not have independent funding, and by replacing the CFPB’s single director with a five-member commission – a known recipe for gridlock.”
A new Lake Research poll, commissioned by Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending, finds strong, continued, bipartisan support for government regulation of financial services and products. In marked contrast to the typical trendline of public opinion after a disaster, this is
With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now in a position to regulate the practice, a new poll shows strong public sentiment against the use of forced-arbitration clauses in consumer finance contracts. The poll demonstrates wide, bipartisan opposition to forced arbitration as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on a multi-agency appropriations bill that would put roadblocks in the way of CFPB action.