Steve Lynch: “I want to thank the gentleman for yielding and for his advocacy on behalf of the American consumer. The Dodd-Frank Act…”

“I want to thank the gentleman for yielding and for his advocacy on behalf of the American consumer. The Dodd-Frank Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with the sole purpose of ensuring that financial markets work for, and not against, American families. It established a single director empowered with a singular mandate which is simply to protect the consumer. This bill, H.R. 1315, seeks to weaken the CFPB on the day it opens its doors for the first time in two important ways. First, it would make it more difficult for the Consumer Protection Bureau to act by replacing the director with a five-member commission. As has been shown, a single director with executive authority and who is directly responsible to the American consumer is better suited to act quickly to address problems in the consumer financial markets, and he or she will be directly accountable to Congress for the bureau's actions. On the other hand, a five-member commission creates another bureaucracy that would be both less effective and less accountable to consumers. A five-member commission would also, in this case, cost taxpayers an additional $71 million. To offset the cost of these commissioners and their staffs, we're being asked to use the money from a Federal Housing Administration program created to help responsible Americans who have continued to make mortgage payments refinance their underwater homes.…”