The Wall Street Journal reports Democrats “are stepping up the fight” over the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency “amid evidence that business groups are making headway in their campaign against the proposal.” Top White House officials and congressional Democrats “pressed their case” for the new agency on Wednesday, “hoping to refocus the debate on the everyday consumers still feeling the effects of the financial crisis. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also plans to weigh in on the matter this week, devoting a sizable portion of his comments before a U.S. House panel to the issue, according to an administration official.”
Politico reports House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank led Democrats in attacking “banks and other financial players for employing an army of lobbyists to fight against” the proposed agency. The lawmakers “have teamed up with a coalition of labor unions, consumer groups and civil rights activists, and they vowed to fight back all summer long.” Frank “intended to mark up legislation to create the agency next week, but delayed action until September largely because of the pushback from the industry.”
The Washington Post reports Frank “said that the financial industry’s ‘highest priority is killing this agency.’” At a news conference, he said, “I’ve been disappointed. I didn’t expect them to cheer for this. But I’ve been disappointed at the energy they’re putting” into opposing it.
In a Wall Street Journal (7/23, A15) op-ed, Judge Richard Posner writes, “Will the epitaph of the Obama administration be ‘too much, too soon, too costly’? Among worrisome signs is its proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009. The agency would have regulatory authority over retail financial products such as mortgages and credit cards, with the aim, the bill says, of ensuring that consumers ‘have, understand, and can use the information they need to make responsible decisions.’ But the agency will go beyond the conventional consumer-protection function of providing information. It also will design ’standard’ consumer financial products that will contain whatever ‘features or terms [are] defined by the Agency for the product or service.’ The seller of a mortgage or credit card, for example, will be required to offer the customer the agency-designed product.”
From the American Association for Justice news release.