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Elizabeth Warren Won’t Let Trump Gut The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Elizabeth Warren Won’t Let Trump Gut The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Mitch McConnell may have cut her off on the Senate floor, but Elizabeth Warren refuses to be silenced. Two days after becoming an internet meme, the Massachusetts senator sat down with Attn to discuss an underreported, but no less pressing Trump scandal.

“What Donald Trump wants to do is fire one of the most important financial cops and then say to the American people, you keep walking down this dark alley and, you know, what happens is what happens,” Warren revealed.

The cop in question is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray. Cordray’s term ends in July 2018, but Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is encouraging Trump to “immediately fire” the director.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which didn’t even exist before the financial crisis, [prevents Americans from being] cheated on mortgages and credit cards and the things that ultimately blew up our economy,” Warren explained.

The CFPD was created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and specifically helped combat home mortgage scams. Now that Trump wants to scrap the legislation, Republicans such as Rep. Hensarling, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska say Cordray must go.

“The financial services industry, the giant banks figured out, ‘Whoa, there’s money to be made here… by selling, lyin’ and cheatin’ scammin’ mortgages,’ and that’s what they did,” Warren said.

“They sold them in big numbers and for a little while it was, you know, like a sugar high,” she continued. “Housing prices went up, the economy went crazy, and then of course it all blew up. And they not only cost people their homes and cost them their financial security, they cost millions of people across this country their jobs and their savings. They really created the economy that made it so hard for young people to come in and get good and decent jobs and be able to move ahead.”

Warren became the Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in September 2010, but was not nominated to direct the agency for fear she would not pass confirmation. President Obama nominated Cordray instead 10 months later.

According to Warren, the agency functions as “a cop on the beat, to [provide] a level playing field” and “Donald Trump just started the process to try to gut the rules.”

Watch:

Alexandra Rosenmann is an AlterNet associate editor. Follow her @alexpreditor.

IMAGE: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) shows company documents to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf during his testimony before a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the firm’s sales practices on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Banking Regulators Launch Broad Review Of Financial Rules

Banking Regulators Launch Broad Review Of Financial Rules

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times

Three of the nation’s financial regulators on Wednesday launched a broad effort to identify rules that are unnecessary or too burdensome for banks.

Under a 1996 law, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are required to conduct such a review at least once every 10 years.

The new study comes after Congress enacted a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations in 2010, some of which are still being drafted.

The so-called Dodd-Frank law was passed in response to the financial crisis, and many industry executives have criticized some of the measure’s hundreds of new rules as placing too large a burden on banks and other firms.

The three agencies said they would start a two-year process of soliciting comments from the public on regulations affecting federally insured, deposit-taking banks.

As part of the review, regulators will consider how to reduce the burdens on community banks.

“We are keenly aware of the role that these institutions play in providing consumers and businesses across the nation with essential financial services and access to credit, and we are concerned about the impact of regulatory burden on these smaller institutions,” the regulators said in a statement.

Under the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996, the agencies are required “to identify outdated, unnecessary or unduly burdensome regulations.”

The regulators must report to Congress about how to “reduce regulatory burden” on banks while still ensuring their safety and soundness, as well as that of the broader financial system.

The first report was issued in 2007, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which consists of the nation’s five banking regulatory agencies.

In addition to the study by the Fed, FDIC and OCC, another regulator, the National Credit Union Administration, is conducting a similar review.

The fifth agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was created by the Dodd-Frank law and is required to review and report on the effects of significant regulations it enacts five years after they take effect, the council said.

AFP Photo/Scott Olson