On the recordJuly 21, 2011
I thank my colleagues for raising this issue. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is needed. House Republicans have today officially launched their legislative effort to make sure these protections will never have the chance to do the job of protecting our consumers and safeguarding the larger economy. It is as if our friends across the aisle are blind to the painful lessons of the Great Recession. It's the group that says let's pretend the recession never happened. The Republican strategy to defang, defuse, and delay the consumer protection agency ignores critical issues that contributed both to the credit bubble and the financial meltdown. Deceptive and misleading practices, predatory lending, unsafe credit standards--these practices cost Americans dearly. According to the Federal Reserve, between 2007 and the final quarter of 2009, United States household wealth fell by $16.4 trillion of the net worth, and that is terrible. That is a sum that would be more than enough to pay for the United States national debt. If the CFPB had been in place in 2001, we might have avoided this painful, disruptive economic downturn that has hurt our overall economy, our standing in the world, and our consumers. We must let the CFPB go into effect to protect our economy and protect our consumers. I congratulate the gentlelady on her leadership.
