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Toledo
Blade...
Choosing
sides
October 9, 2011
This
week, the Senate Banking
Committee approved Richard Cordray’s nomination to head the newly
created
federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The party-line vote -- 12
Democrats for the nomination, 10 Republicans opposed -- sets up a
battle on the
Senate floor that has nothing to do with the former Ohio Attorney
General’s
qualifications and everything to do with protecting financial
institutions from
needed oversight.
Congress
created the consumer bureau
after it became clear that predatory lending practices led to a tsunami
of
underwater mortgages, mortgage defaults, foreclosures, the
near-collapse of the
housing industry, and recession. Northwest Ohio and especially Toledo
were
particularly hard hit. The agency’s job is to protect consumers from a
repeat
performance by the financial industry.
But
Republicans, including Ohio Sen.
Rob Portman, have vowed to hold Mr. Cordray’s nomination as director
hostage
until the agency is made more transparent and accountable. What they
really
want is to water down the bureau’s power until it is business as usual
for
financial institutions.
People
in Ohio should not be
surprised. The state’s new Republican leadership lost no time cutting
funding
to the Ohio Consumers’ Council, which protects the interests of
residential
consumers against powerful utility companies. Last month, the agency’s
chief
quit in protest.
Trusting
financial institutions to
regulate themselves is how the United States got into the current
economic
mess. Yet other than the consumer bureau, Washington has done nothing
to hold
bankers, mortgage lenders, and others responsible for the abusive
practices
that contributed to the financial crisis.
Polls
show that a majority of Republican,
Democratic, and Independent voters want to see reform in the financial
industry
and support a single agency to protect consumers from financial
companies. The
Occupy Wall Street protests, while they lack focus, reinforce the poll
finding.
Mr.
Cordray proved his worth as a
consumer advocate in Ohio, where as attorney general he recovered more
than $2
billion for Ohio’s retirees, investors, and business owners. His
integrity,
intelligence, and commitment to fair-minded public service has won
support for
his nomination from business leaders such as the chairman of Limited
Brands
Inc. and even the president of the Ohio Bankers League, whose members
the
federal bureau will regulate.
Republican
senators have threatened to
filibuster the nomination until they get what they want, which is to
remove any
hope of reining in financial abuses. As Warren Buffett noted recently
about
taxing the rich: “There’s been class warfare going on for the last 20
years,
and my class has won.”
And
there is no question which side
Republicans are on.
Read
it at the Toledo Blade
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