Senate Republicans to President Obama re: gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Statement of Janet S. Domenitz, Executive Director of MASSPIRG

MASSPIRG

United States Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, along with Republican leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and all but two of his 44 Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate have told President Obama in a letter that there will be no deal on Elizabeth Warren or anyone else to run the CFPB unless it is weakened substantially as proposed in several bills being considered in Congress.

MASSPIRG congratulates Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) for declining to sign this letter, which proposed that  the CFPB would be run by a five-member commission instead of a director, receive appropriations funding instead of bank user fees, and other body blows to the nascent agency which would  make it a creature of the political Congress, not an independent body.  Senator Brown showed clear thinking and good judgment by standing apart from the vast majority of his Republican colleagues in his refusal to sign this letter. Bay Staters in particular and consumers in general should be grateful.