Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to thank the chairman for his leadership on this important issue and so many others before the Banking Committee. Since September 2008, we have learned many hard lessons about the factors that contributed to the financial crisis. To address systemic risks and to fix the system, we passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. One of the most important reforms we made in that legislation was the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or the CFPB. The CFPB is charged with stopping abusive mortgage originators, stopping abusive credit card companies, and stopping abusive private student loan lenders. For years we have had organizations whose purpose was to protect the banking system and, indirectly, consumers. We need to provide a balance. Frankly, if we had this balance in place prior to 2008, we might have avoided some of the incredible costs we have seen not only to consumers but to the entire banking system as a result of predatory behavior by many different financial institutions. Unfortunately, many of my Republican colleagues are trying not to correct deficiencies in the Dodd-Frank act or improve it. They want to gut it. One of the things they want to take out is consumer protection, and they want to do that by denying a nominee to head up this important agency.…”