Kilili: Congress votes to rein in Wall Street, protect consumers
Jun 30, 2010
Washington, D.C. – The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to approve major legislation designed to end the bailouts of big banks and create a consumer financial protection bureau that finally puts consumers first. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will end the era of abuses by “too big to fail” banks that have cost the American people 8 million jobs and $17 trillion in retirement savings and net worth. The vote was 237 to 192. Only 3 Republicans voted in favor of the reform bill.
“Wall Street Reform isn’t something happening on the other side of the world with no impact on the Northern Mariana Islands,” said Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan. “We’ve seen the Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund lose tens of millions of dollars as a direct result of the recklessness and greed on Wall Street.
“And I’m sure there were individual investors in the Northern Marianas who have also seen the value of their retirement accounts and other investments plummet over the last two years.
“The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will help prevent the risky financial practices that led to this financial meltdown and stop large financial firms from gambling with Americans’ retirement and college savings.”
The bill creates a process to shut down large, failing firms whose collapse would put the entire economy at risk. After exhausting all of the company’s assets, additional costs would be covered by a “dissolution fund,” to which all large financial firms would contribute.
“The bill also creates a new consumer protection agency that will help protect people from unfair and abusive financial practices,” said Kilili. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will set standards to prevent hidden credit card fees, deceptive ‘fine print,’ and other financial abuses that too many of us have experienced first-hand.
“It actually builds on the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights that we passed last year and which began to go into effect in February.”
The new CFPB will have authority to take on predatory lending, payday loans, check cashers, and overdraft fees. And the CFPB is given broad authority to move quickly if Wall Street, the big banks, and the credit card industry invent new hidden fees and abusive practices.
“The bill should also help retailers on swipe fees,” Congressman Sablan added. “When a customer uses a debit card, the retailer can pay between 1 and 2 percent to the bank. When the customer uses a credit card to make a purchase, the swipe fee can be in excess of 2 percent.
“The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires that those fees have to be ‘reasonable and proportionate to processing costs.’ Merchants could also give customers a discount for using cash and could restrict debit card purchases to a $10 minimum.”
The bill has been endorsed by the AARP, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Council of Institutional Investors, National Fair Housing Alliance, National Restaurant Association, Public Citizen, SEIU, and US PIRG, among other organizations.
The Senate must now vote on the conference report, before the bill goes to the President for signature.
