Political Quotes

“Madam President, in the years leading up to the financial crisis, the biggest banks and lenders created new ways to make record profits off of consumers. They made predatory loans to working-class families, created prepaid cards with exploitative fees, and gave out student loans to first-generation college students with interest rates sometimes as high as 20 percent. Today millions of consumers are still trying to recover from these unscrupulous practices while companies keep looking for new ways to increase their profits at the expense of these consumers. Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect Americans from consumer fraud and abusive fees and products. I thank the Presiding Officer for her role in this before she came to the Senate. More than 700 days since its creation, American citizens are now just getting to vote for a consumer watchdog to head the organization. Because of the CFPB, consumers can now decipher credit card applications and have help correcting erroneous credit reports. Because of these successes, confirming Richard Cordray as the Director was right. We know where he stands. We know for whom he stands--as a strong advocate for consumers, families, and small businesses. No one doubted Richard Cordray's qualifications or temperament for the job. This is the first time in American history when one party refused to confirm a nominee because they didn't like the agency. A terrible precedent was being set.…”