Doubling down on their commitment to protect Wall Street at all costs, Republicans aren't budging from their
opposition to an effective Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They've vowed to block any nominee to head up the new agency unless the administration allows them to gut the agency, making it completely powerless to do what it was created to do: level the financial playing field for middle class families. And that's just what they're doing.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday showed no signs of backing down from their threatened filibuster of President Barack Obama’s nominee to head a new financial watchdog agency, even as Democrats framed the fight as a stark choice between Wall Street and Main Street. [...]
Cordray’s nomination is destined to fail in the Senate on Thursday, with Republicans nearly united in their opposition to the former Democratic Ohio attorney general. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is the only Republican who’s publicly backed the nomination, saying Cordray should be confirmed with a simple majority, not the 60-vote threshold the GOP has insisted on to avert a filibuster.
The GOP doesn't want the CFPB doing radical things like the project they're rolling out today.
In another blow against fine print, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes to Cleveland today to unveil a new model credit card agreement that's shorter and easier to read.
The new form whittles credit disclosures, which average about 5,000 words, to 1,000 words contained in a slim two pages of readable type.
How crazy and dangerous is that, informing credit card holders of how their cards work? (Here's the CFPB's template for an agreement.) Wall Street, and Republicans, don't want informed consumers. It's much harder for them to steal your money if you know how they're doing it.
The only resolution to this won't be a permanent one. President Obama is going to have to ratchet the fight up a notch, and give Cordray a recess appointment. He's already vowed to veto any efforts to weaken the CFPB, and highlighted Cordray's nomination and a strong CFPB in his speech yesterday in Kansas, saying:
"Every day we go without a consumer watchdog in place is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or member of our Armed Forces could be tricked into a loan they can't afford—something that happens all the time.
"Financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. I intend to make sure they do, and I will veto any effort to delay, defund or dismantle the new rules we put in place."
A recess appointment would take the fight to Republicans, and give the Bureau the director it needs.