Under questioning from Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mulvaney unconvincingly defends his attempts to kill the consumer watchdog he now heads
CRL report documented the failures of other regulators in the run-up to crisis and argued for creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today in testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, Mick Mulvaney, the de-facto head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), sang his familiar but frightening tune: the CFPB should never have been created and if the agency were to be abolished, other federal financial regulators would do its job just as well.
Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) Director of Federal Advocacy Scott Astrada issued the following statement:
Mick Mulvaney’s attempts to hamstring and abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau threaten to turn back the clock a decade. In the run up to the 2008 financial crisis, a splintered federal regulatory structure allowed reckless financial practices that ultimately swept away the homes, savings, and livelihoods of millions of Americans. Mulvaney ignores this history at our country’s peril.
Additional Background
Prior to the CFPB’s creation, CRL issued a policy brief that chronicled the repeated failure of federal banking regulators to rein in irresponsible lending practices and how this contributed to the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing Great Recession. In her exchange with Mulvaney today, Senator Warren echoed this history and the need for the CFPB, focusing on how it has stopped scams that targeted military servicemembers, students, 9/11 First Responders, and other Americans.
This week, the Center for Responsible Lending along with Americans for Financial Reform and Allied Progress launched a website that documents the actions at the CFPB that Mick Mulvaney has taken to side with financial predators, instead of consumers: www.ConsumersUnderAttack.org
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.