Trump CFPB’s Industry-Packed Task Force Predictably Offers Anti-Consumer Recommendations That Congress Should Roundly Reject
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump CFPB’s highly secretive, industry-packed Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law released its recommendations for picking apart consumer protection laws today that no one outside of Wall Street lobbyists were asking for. Predictably, their report aims to leave millions of consumers worse off and more vulnerable to financial abuse than they were before, including: calls for eliminating caps on abusively high interest rates (p. 94 of Volume II); eliminating protections against predatory college-sponsored credit cards in CARD Act (p. 79 of Volume II); and suggesting a lighter touch on the enforcement of anti-discrimination safeguards (p. 72 of Volume II).
Consumer advocacy group Allied Progress urged the new Congress and incoming Biden administration to consider the source and reject the tainted conclusions on their face. The Task Force’s chairman, Todd Zywicki, has a history of supporting anti-consumer policies, including opposing government crackdowns against price gouging during major disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
“There’s a reason this has been dubbed a ‘Task Farce’. Consumers literally had no seat at this table and now we see the industry-friendly result,” said Derek Martin, director of Allied Progress, the consumer advocacy group behind CFPBWatch.org. “In the middle of a pandemic and while millions of Americans are struggling, Trump’s CFPB encouraged friends of the financial industry to meet behind closed doors and start hacking up consumer protections. Leaders in Washington must put consumers first by rejecting these ideas written by and for many of the same industries that exploit hardworking Americans.”
SEE ALSO from Accountable.US: Watchdog Calls on President-Elect Biden to Immediately Reinstate Protections for Consumers and Vulnerable Americans
###