If you’re completely confident that your money and personal information are safe in the hands of the financial services industry – and if you don’t have a credit card, a mortgage, a student loan or a bank account – there’s no need for concern about the pending resignation of the nation’s top consumer advocate.
The rest of us, on the other hand, should be very worried about the near-certainty that the next head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be someone bent on gutting it rather than ensuring that it’s better equipped to do its job.
Richard Cordray’s announcement Wednesday that he plans to step down by the end of the month follows a tumultuous first six years for the bureau, the only federal agency solely dedicated to protecting Americans from harmful banking and lending practices.
Banks, mortgage companies, credit card issuers and their Republican allies in Washington have long been critical of the bureau, but their efforts to weaken its oversight of unfair, illegal or predatory practices didn’t pay off until Donald Trump was in office.
The Trump administration’s approach to financial regulation can be summed up in three words: Foxes, meet henhouse. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, a tea party Republican who’s tried to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, could be appointed its acting director as soon as Friday – the day after Joseph Otting, a former banker who was investigated over his bank’s home foreclosure practices, was confirmed as the leading regulator of large national lenders.
Former Wall Street lawyers Jay Clayton and Randal Quarles, the industry insiders nominated, respectively, to run the Securities and Exchange Commission and oversee Wall Street’s largest banks, had already gotten the green light from the Senate.
Maine’s two senators, Republican Susan Collins and independent Angus King, should push back early and often against efforts by the White House to replace Cordray as permanent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director with a figurehead who would stand by quietly as Congress repeals the bureau’s consumer complaint system, reduces its ability to make rules and bars it from penalizing the institutions it regulates – among other proposals to neuter the agency.
The bureau has been a much-needed champion for the average American. It played a key role in investigating Wells Fargo for creating millions of fake customer accounts and fined the bank $185 million. It’s returned $60 million to service members charged excess interest on student loans; military families dealing with illegal foreclosures and predatory lenders have gotten back $120 million.
All told, about 29 million Americans have gotten back nearly $12 billion as a result of the bureau’s efforts. If Maine’s senators help put in place someone whose goal is to undo these safeguards, the people who stand to lose out – their constituents – should be prepared to hold them accountable.
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