Political Quotes

“I rise today to speak about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the renomination of Rich Cordray to serve as its Director. Several years ago I began working on the idea for a consumer finance agency because our consumer credit system was badly broken. The laws were inconsistent, they were often arbitrary, and the basic rules changed for the same kind of product, such as a mortgage, depending on what kind of company sold it. People got cheated. And, as we know, in 2008, reckless and dangerous mortgage lenders and Wall Street traders who made money off those mortgages nearly brought our entire economy to its knees. In 2010 Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The consumer protection part of that was the new consumer agency--the CFPB--which was designed as a watchdog to keep credit card issuers, mortgage lenders, and student loan marketers from cheating people. Now, there was a lot of negotiation over the structure of this new agency. Hearing after hearing, markup after markup, floor vote after floor vote. But now the same big bank lobbyists are fighting the same fight and using the same tired old talking points about the consumer agency they were using years ago. You know, you really have to wonder just how much money they are making fighting this fight over and over. But now let's go ahead one more time and talk about the facts.…”