On the recordOctober 3, 2023
after hearing oral arguments earlier today, the Supreme Court will rule on a case that will determine whether average Americans will continue to have an independent Federal watchdog to push back against the abuses of big financial institutions. The case I am speaking of is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association of America. It deals with an outlandish ruling of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that would invalidate the congressionally approved funding scheme of the CFPB. If it stands, the ruling will starve the Bureau of funding and effectively prevent it from working on behalf of the American people. But let's take a step back to remember why the CFPB was created over a decade ago. In the runup to the great recession, lenders were aggressively marketing subprime mortgages with predatory features to borrowers they knew had no ability to repay. Reckless Wall Street firms bundled those mortgages into securities and sold them to investors, including pension funds. And weak regulators stood by as all of this unfolded. Borrowers ultimately discovered that they could not repay their mortgages. The securities backed by these mortgages took a nosedive, causing a meltdown of the banking system and taking down the entire economy. While Wall Street got a lifeline from the Congress and the Federal Government, millions of Americans did not. They paid with their jobs, their homes, and their savings.…
Source
govinfo.gov




