Republicans to Go After Consumer Protection.

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=11&year=2010&base_name=republicans_to_go_after_consum

Republicans to Go After Consumer Protection.


In an unsurprising move, House Republicans are gearing up to hinder the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established this past summer by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation:

While they have little hope of repealing the new consumer agency—which has broad powers to write rules for mortgages, credit cards and other financial products—Republicans can work to influence regulators to blunt the agency's power.

Sending critical letters and ordering up investigations are two time-honored ways lawmakers exert influence. In this case, Republicans have two main targets: the Treasury Department, which is running the new agency until it assumes its full powers on July 21, and Elizabeth Warren, who was tapped as a special adviser by President Barack Obama to lead the setup of the bureau.

One of the reasons that the CFPB was placed inside the Federal Reserve -- and is funded by the Fed -- was to protect it from attacks like these; regulators whose budget is controlled by Congress, like the SEC and the CFTC, are already expecting to see staff cuts that will make it difficult to implement the new rules mandated by Congress.

Still, complaints about Warren's transparency are somewhat strange; as the article notes, she's been very up-front about who she's been talking to and why. She's also been up-front about her goal: Limit fine print and make financial contracts easier to understand. Who could object to that? 96 percent of Americans over 50 want to eliminate fine print -- then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez couldn't figure out his mortgage documents, and during hearings surrounding the issue last year, Republicans and Warren seemed to be on the same page.

snip//

The problem is that what should be a policy debate is now all about politics. Republicans have made common cause with the financial sector in the wake of the Dodd-Frank bill, and made clear that they would fight any effort to appoint Warren to be the first director of the CFPB. Now that President Obama has appointed her to lead the Treasury Department's effort to set up the agency before it officially begins its work on July 21, efforts to discredit the agency will take place there, not at a nomination hearing.

-- Tim Fernholz

[gateley]

1. "The problem is that what should be a policy debate is now all about politics"

I don't think there IS such an animal as a policy DEBATE these days. These people are continuing their destruction of America.

[annabanana]

2. This will not even merit a whisper in CorpoMedia® .

Or if they mention it at all they will be VERY CAREFUL not to indicate that it is a Republican effort. They'll trot out Joe Lieberman or some wholly owned Dem and then pretend it is bipartisan.

[MadMaddie]

3. But....but....didn't they run on "Transparancy"?

That's right folks...........bwha....haw..haw.. the Republican/Teabagger lemmings got played like an old fiddle....will any of their braincells activate long enough to recognize it?