Here's Why Republicans Are Suddenly Demanding Tougher Bank Regulation
.. in the body much repeat, some new ..
GOP senators want to know why Elizabeth Warren's consumer watchdog didn't go after Wells Fargo earlier.
21/09/2016 8:12 AM AEST | Updated 6 hours ago 469
Amanda Terkel Senior Political Reporter, The Huffington Post Zach Carter Senior Political Economy Reporter, The Huffington Post
Drew Angerer/Bloomberg via Getty Images Senate Banking Committee Chair Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) was skeptical of CFPB's oversight during a hearing Tuesday.
2013 .. Harry Reid escalates nuclear threat in a big way By Greg Sargent, Published: July 11 at 11:56 am .. un poco .. In short, Reid is dramatizing the stakes here for Dems in his own caucus as well as for Republicans. On the Senate floor today, Mitch McConnell signaled that McCarthy and Perez would be allowed to move forward, but it remains unclear when, and it’s still unclear whether Republicans will lift their blockade on Cordray — whom Republicans are holding up simply because they want to prevent the CFPB from functioning — or on the NLRB nominations. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=89848655
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Republicans typically attack the CFPB for being good at its job. The agency has returned over $11 billion .. http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/07/cfpbs_benefit_to_consumers_tot.html .. to a total of 25 million bilked consumers in its first five years, and every dollar that goes back to customers is a dollar that a financial firm doesn’t get to book as its own profit. Banks, payday lenders and other operators have spent a lot of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to stem this cash outflow. And Republicans have responded by crafting legislation to tie up the CFPB with red tape and made it harder to enforce its consumer protection rules. Both the House and Senate are currently pushing bills that analysts at the investment bank Keefe, Bruyette and Woods describe as “weakening” the agency.
“This timeline begs the question: Where were the federal regulators during those years?” Shelby asked.
“Why did it take an LA Times reporter to uncover what should have been uncovered by Wells Fargo’s regulators? If there were ever a textbook case where consumers needed protection, this was it,” the senator added. “How many millions of unauthorized accounts does it take before the CFPB notices?”
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), another committee member, told The Huffington Post after the hearing that he was also concerned the Los Angeles Times was more on top of the issue than the CFPB was.
“From what I can tell, the consumer bureau had nothing to do with finding this. I know they came along to vacuum up a fine, if you will. But from what we understand, it was actually the LA Times reporter who uncovered this,” Corker said.
“Look, I think we should have consumer protection. I always have,” he added. “I was part of negotiating a bill that would certainly create a consumer protection bureau. I do think having a commission or board members would be a good check and a balance. But I have no indication here ? and again, I support their existence ? but I have no indication that they had anything whatsoever toward uncovering this.”
“In today’s Banking hearing, Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf admitted that he knew about the fraudulent sales practices back in 2013, but in fact, this was a problem back in 2011. This is a classic example of a ‘Too Big to Fail’ megabank being ‘Too Big to Manage’ and ‘Too Big to Regulate,’” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “If the federal regulators had been doing their job all along, we would have ended this scam several years ago.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said the Wells Fargo incident didn’t change his mind about the need to change CFPB.
“I have yet to see any proof that the CFPB would have prevented the mess we are seeing unravel at Wells Fargo,” Scott said in a statement. “It remains an unelected and non-transparent board that is only enlarging the bureaucracy.”
ER Anderson, spokesman for Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), also said the senator believes CFPB “was asleep at the switch.” He said Toomey believes Well Fargo employees’ actions were “outrageous and fraudulent,” and the guilty employees and negligent management “should be held accountable.”
“But let’s be clear,” Anderson added. “CFPB did not discover the wrongdoing by Wells Fargo. ... In fact Senator Toomey asked the CFPB, other federal regulators, the L.A. City Attorney, and even Wells Fargo about the CFPB’s involvement and none can provide any evidence that the CFPB discovered any wrong doing. Unlike the OCC and the L.A. City Attorney, the CFPB continues to refuse to provide evidence that it played any role in unearthing or cleaning up the mess other than collecting the $100 million fine from the bank ? not a penny of which the CFPB will give to the victims.”
Cordray said Tuesday, however, that the CFPB knew about the abuses before the Los Angeles Times, first learning about them from whistleblowers in mid-2013. Shelby pressed Cordray on the timeline of investigations, trying to get him to admit that the CFPB essentially glommed onto the work of the LA city attorney and the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Cordray replied that his agency was doing its own investigation all along:
-- SHELBY: Prior to filing the city lawsuit in May 2015, did CFPB personnel accompany [the Los Angeles city attorney’s] investigators as they did the following: conducted numerous interviews with former Wells Fargo employees, met with aggrieved victims, poured over public records including court records from wrongful termination lawsuits by Wells Fargo. Did they?
CORDRAY: These investigations merged over time what work we were doing, work the OCC was doing.
SHELBY: They initiated the investigation, did they not?
CORDRAY: They investigated ? they initiated their investigation. We initiated our own efforts. In our office.
SHELBY: After they ?
CORDRAY: No, we first heard about these problems in mid-2013 through whistleblower tips. The LA Times investigative series confirmed there were issues in this industry. --
The other GOP senators on the banking committee did not return requests for comment.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during Tuesday’s hearing that the Wells Fargo revelations show that the agency has had a “very salutary influence” and is “a necessary part of our system of banking and governing.” And Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton pledged to protect the CFPB in an open letter to Wells Fargo customers .. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-wells-fargo_us_57e08b5ae4b0071a6e093458 .. Tuesday.
This article has been updated to include comments from Sens. Scott and Toomey.
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