GOP Congressman Mac Thornberry ‘blocked restrictions on lenders near military bases while wife worked for bank lobby’
See July 29 Washington Examiner story, ‘GOP lawmaker blocked restrictions on lenders near military bases while wife worked for bank lobby’. Reaction from consumer watchdog group Allied Progress spokesman Jeremy Funk:
“Congressman Thornberry is the kind of guy who wraps himself in the flag and tweets about “supporting the troops”. But give his campaign enough money and hire his industry lobbyist wife, and he’s willing to throw servicemembers to the predatory loan sharks faster than you can say ‘conflict of interest’. Thornberry tried to obscure his personal interest in selling out our men in women in uniform by claiming education works better than commonsense protections like an interest rate cap. Only problem is that’s never been true.
“Congressman Thornberry’s two-faced treatment of our servicemembers is not isolated, it’s symptomatic of the predatory lending industry’s growing influence over Washington. They gave the Trump administration millions of reasons to propose gutting payday lending protections and to stop using its authority to conduct examinations of lenders who may be fleecing our military members.
“A better way for the administration and its backers in Congress to honor the troops than driving tanks through the nation’s capital would be to keep them out of financial harm’s way.”
###