Elizabeth Warren

It is statutory language that you are asking.

Congressman, we will go through the process of interpreting the language that Congress has given us.

Congressman, this is the guidance that Congress has given.

We are trying to get this product right, and we have had a lot of cooperation from the credit card companies.

As Congress has known since the middle of the 1800's when they made the decision in the establishment of the first bank regulator to make the funding for that regulator outside the appropriations and political process, we knew that we…

So far as I know, there is no agency anywhere in the Federal Government whose rulings, once arrived at through the full process, could actually be overruled by a group of other agencies.

There was an astonishing abuse of power, of confirmation power in the Senate.

And in response to this crisis, with overwhelming support from the American people, we created the CFPB, and it is carefully constructed, urgently needed, and should be allowed to go into operation as planned by the bill that was signed…

I truly believe the title of this hearing today and really the GOP efforts in general should be: Let's pretend the financial crisis never happened.

We have already begun the process of hiring some people.

The cap on our budget is set at just under $600 million.

There is no oversight from Congress in that process.

We cannot go back to the era of inadequate protection for the American people.

I ultimately believe that the real partners for this agency will be families all over this country.

I think in the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Congress made some very smart moves.

Congressman, it is not our job to negotiate on behalf of the Federal agencies.

Yes, Congressman, we did.

This is our job, and we are trying to do our job, and that is to be helpful to other agencies.

When the Treasury came to me and said we would like your advice, I was glad to.

We have been asked for advice, and wherever we can be helpful we are not only glad to be helpful, we are proud to be helpful.

We are really trying to develop more effective complaint resolution in the consumer agency on a product-by-product basis.

But we are capped, and there is only a certain amount of money that comes to this agency to carry out its functions before we would be forced to go into the political process.

I would say that there is a lot of unfounded concern about lack of oversight on this agency.

I think many terms are 5-year fixed terms.

I am begging you to keep the fire. I have constituents who have lost so much and they don't even know how they lost it.