09.13.16

Durbin, Welch Statement On House Committee Passage Of Repeal Of Wall Street Reform

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) released the following statement regarding the Financial CHOICE Act, legislation by U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) that would gut the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The bill was just narrowly passed by Hensarling’s House Financial Services Committee, over bipartisan opposition.
  
This bill’s 500+ pages are stuffed full of goodies and giveaways for Wall Street banks at the expense of Main Street families and businesses. The bill would gut consumer protections and unleash the same predatory forces that caused the financial meltdown of 2008 and led to the Great Recession.
  
It would repeal the Volcker Rule, which prevents banks from gambling with their customers’ money. It would cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from the kind of abusive practices that we just saw from Wells Fargo.  And it would dramatically increase debit card swipe fees, which would be like dropping an $8 billion per year tax increase on America’s small businesses to benefit the same big banks that got us into the mess in the first place.
 
Chairman Hensarling and his fellow committee Republicans are turning their backs on American families and small businesses with this big bank bonanza bill. The better choice would be to keep critical Wall Street reform protections in place and reject this misguided bill.