Unlawfully Appointed Acting Director Mulvaney Wants CFPB to Use Emergency Funds Instead, Signaling Latest Chapter in Campaign to Dismantle the Consumer Bureau
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Mick Mulvaney sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen that “for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2018, the Bureau is requesting $0.” Mulvaney wants to instead deplete the reserve fund. Also this week, Mulvaney initiated a public review to critique the CFPB, reopened a CFPB rule intended to stop payday loan debt traps, and without explanation, the CFPB dropped a case against a payday lender accused of deceiving consumers and evading state law with loans as high as 950 percent APR.
Debbie Goldstein, Executive Vice President Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), issued the following statement:
Mick Mulvaney has declared open season on consumers for payday lenders and other predatory financial companies. Under Director Cordray, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lived up to its name and returned $12 billion to nearly 30 million Americans who were cheated out of their money. Now, Mulvaney wants to help predatory financial companies keep their ill-gotten gains.
This is the latest chapter in Mulvaney’s long campaign to undermine and completely dismantle the Consumer Bureau. When in Congress, he supported a bill to eliminate the Bureau, as OMB Director he authored a budget to defund the Consumer Bureau, and today sent the message that its work of defending consumers is not worth a penny.
Mulvaney is an unlawfully appointed, anti-consumer ‘Acting Director,’ who has politicized what was set up as an independent financial regulator, insulated from politics. The President has the opportunity to right this misguided ship by nominating a permanent Director who can garner bipartisan support in the Senate and protect consumers, instead of turning them into prey.
For more information, or to arrange an interview with a CRL spokesperson on this issue, please contact Matthew Kravitz at matthew.kravitz@responsiblelending.org or 202-349-1859.