Dems: Lack of Director for Consumer Watchdog Hurting Military
The chaos at the top of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is hurting military families, according to Democratic senators who are girding themselves for yet another showdown with the GOP over a nomination fight.
On Thursday the Senate is set to vote on the nomination of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to be head of the consumer watchdog agency, but with Republicans in lockstep against his confirmation the vote is expected to fail.
The debate over the nomination has become yet another flash-point between the GOP and an increasingly populist Democratic party.
In a report released earlier this week, the White House argued that military service members--as younger Americans often earning their first steady paycheck--are particularly vulnerable to shady financial services and predatory pay-day lending. According to the report, installment loan companies near military bases pushed for loans with undisclosed annual interest rates as high as 782 percent. It was a message echoed by senators at a press conference on Thursday.
"They have done so much to protect us, but we leave them without protection, that we could provide them from the lenders who prey on our military," said Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, himself a veteran of World War II.
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But Republicans show no signs of budging on an issue which has become an ideological rallying cry for both parties. Republicans have said they don't have any issues with Cordray's qualifications, but object to the new agency's powers and insufficient Congressional oversight--especially the fact that, like some other independent federal agencies, its budget is not subject to Congressional deliberation.
"What's needed is transparency and accountability. That's all we've asked for," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "And the President has done nothing to address these concerns. ... And now he's suddenly making a push to confirm his nominee, because it fits into some picture he wants to paint about who the good guys and the bad guys are in Washington."
The issue has also become politically potent for President Obama and Democrats, who hope that the issue outlines their populist, middle-class-focused message. The bureau was created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill last year, and was the brainchild of current Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, a figured beloved in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
[See political cartoons about Occupy Wall Street.]
With 44 GOP senators still committed to blocking Cordray's nomination unless changes are made to the CFPB, the Senate is not expected to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to move ahead on his nomination, leaving his future--and that of the bureau--up in the air.
New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said that while he hopes Cordray can be confirmed as a permanent appointment, he said he would support "whatever it took" to get the bureau a director, including using the presidential powers to appoint a nominee, for one year, without Congressional approval during a recess.
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--See political cartoons about the economy.
aparker@usnews.com
Twitter: @AlexParkerDC
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