Submitted by Mary Bottari on
The sweeping Wall Street reform bill that was signed into law this summer calls for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Just like other consumer regulators work to keep dangerous products off the market, the CFPB’s job is to make sure financial products and services don’t harm consumers or our economy.
This summer, almost 3,000 subscribers to our BanksterUSA action alerts signed a petition to President Obama asking him to appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the new bureau. On September 17th, the President appointed Warren to get the bureau on its feet and running. The new agency has not yet opened its doors, but we wanted to give Warren and the new staff a little guidance on what Americans think the agency’s top priorities should be as it begins its work.
Here at CMD, we work closely with the reform coalition Americans for Financial Reform (AFR). We hope you will take the AFR survey to let us know what consumer financial issues you think the new agency should tackle first and we will make sure the survey results are put on Professor Warren’s desk.
Note: The election results do not bode well for reform. The new House Banking Chair, Spencer Bachus, is already threatening to roll back the Volcker Rule and its ban on proprietary trading, so we will have a lot of work ahead of us in the coming months. Stay informed and involved in CMD bank busting fights by signing up for email updates on our BanksterUSA website.
Mary Bottari is a reporter for the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). She helped launch CMD's award-winning ALEC Exposed investigation and is a two-time recipient of the Sidney Prize for public interest journalism from the Sidney Hillman Foundation.
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