Share
Mick Mulvaney Continues to Destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Congressional Republicans have fought unrelentingly for years to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, put into place under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The purpose of the CFPB is to promote fairness and transparency for mortgages, credit cards, and other consumer financial products and services. The CFPB was created to provide a single point of accountability for enforcing federal consumer financial laws and protecting consumers in the financial marketplace.
Remaking the agency, which has unusual authority and independence, has been a priority for Republicans since it was created in 2010. The agency often took an aggressive stance toward regulating and punishing businesses. It extracted nearly $12 billion in refunds and canceled debts for 29 million consumers.
The destruction of the CFPB took a terribly large step in early December when Mick Mulvaney became its acting leader, named by Trump. Trump’s hostile takeover of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is effectively complete.
Boxed out of budget negotiations, Mulvaney’s second job running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau represents a second chance for him to leave his mark. Mulvaney has seized on his second job as the interim chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as an opportunity to dismantle an Obama-era watchdog agency vilified by Republicans since its inception as an example of government overreach.
He is making the most of his opportunity, unapologetically attacking the signature accomplishment of one of Mr. Trump’s most nettlesome enemies, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and taking on the other Democratic legislators outraged by his efforts to gut the bureau.
Mr. Mulvaney seems happiest when describing new ways to undermine the consumer bureau....
Here are the latest details on what Mulvaney is doing to benefit enormous financial institutions with everything else to be damned.
1) ....halted all new investigations, frozen hiring, stopped data collection and proposed cutting off public access to a database of consumer complaints.
2) He dropped most cases against payday lenders — a primary focus of the consumer bureau — and also proposed scrapping a new rule that would have heightened scrutiny of an industry accused of trapping vulnerable customers in a cycle of debt.
3) ....he has tried hard to persuade Congress to take away funding authority for the bureau from the Federal Reserve — so that Congress can cut it.
4) Some cases have been closed or paused indefinitely, and several current bureau staff members expressed concern that Mr. Mulvaney could soon drop a major case against Navient, the student loan company accused of cheating borrowers.
Is there anything to be done until we rid our country of this administation?
Mulvaney’s move to weaken the bureau’s consumer protection efforts have prompted some state attorneys general to fill the void.
“As it became clear that they were not going to be pursuing these cases and working with us, we picked up the slack,” said Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general.
Mulvaney is the definition of The Swamp. He has deep relationships with the industry he is supposed to be policing including them handing him thousands of dollars.
Mulvaney.... took about $63,000 from the payday industry while in Congress....
In February....Mulvaney....at an exclusive club in the Bahamas..... was approached by J. Paul Reddam, the founder of CashCall, who told Mulvaney he wanted to discuss the bureau’s case against the California-based lender over high-cost loans. Mulvaney responded that he thought all of the payday cases had already been dismissed, but would refer the request to a deputy....
Last month, he informed a conference of 1,300 bankers and their lobbyists that he had a standing rule in his congressional office: “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you.” His comments.... prompted calls.... to investigate whether he had committed a violation of federal Hatch Act pay-to-play rules.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/us/mick-mulvaney-budget-director-consumer-bureau.html
http://smartdissent.com/article/destruction-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-disgusting