Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, spoke on the House floor opposing H.R. 6392, a bill that would let President-elect Trump’s Wall Street-friendly administration deregulate 27 of the largest banks in the country. “H.R. 6392 would repeal Dodd-Frank’s $50 billion threshold, above which banks are subject to closer regulatory scrutiny, and prevent the Federal Reserve Board from regulating these banks,” Waters said. “Instead, it would hand over ...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, issued the following statement on reports that President-elect Trump will nominate Steven Mnuchin to serve as the next Treasury Secretary: “Donald Trump ran a campaign on anti-Wall Street rhetoric, but appointing a former hedge fund manager, Goldman Sachs executive, and bank CEO as Treasury Secretary shows his true colors. Mr. Mnuchin is a Wall Street insider with ties to big banks that have a troubling pa...
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The leading Democrats on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees today urged Congressional leaders to reject any attempts to use must-pass government funding legislation to repeal, weaken, or delay financial reforms and consumer protections. In a letter to Senate and House leaders, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said they will oppose ideological policy riders to year-end funding legislation aimed at rolling back protections of the Dodd-Frank Wall Stree...
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Last week, a panel of conservative judges from the D.C. Circuit Court challenged the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the only federal agency solely dedicated to protecting consumers’ financial interests. Here’s a look at what that decision really means: Don't disarm consumer protection: Our view, USA Today “Despite all their complaints about the new financial cop on the beat, the big banks remain highly profitable … But apparently, the bankers still pine for the g...
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In her opening statement at a full committee hearing on the unauthorized accounts at Wells Fargo, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, urged Chairman and CEO John Stumpf to tell the truth about the fraudulent activity that occurred and take full responsibility. “We still do not have the information we need to understand how this happened, when the sales culture turned toxic, and who knew about it and when,” Waters said. Waters called for a th...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, stressed the need for robust regulatory oversight of financial institutions in her opening statement at a hearing today with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. “The Dodd-Frank Act has required regulators to increase capital and liquidity standards, reduce interconnection in the financial markets, and more closely scrutinize large financial firms’ risk management,” Waters said. “However, there is much work...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, discussed the importance of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) in keeping our financial system safe at a hearing today with Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on the FSOC’s annual report to Congress. “With Wall Street reform, we created the FSOC to look across the entire financial system, identify gaps that may exist between regulators, and take action to prevent another meltdown,” Waters said i...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, derided Republicans’ reckless plan to repeal Wall Street Reform during Committee consideration of H.R. 5983. In her opening statement, Waters noted that “nearly all the rules we enacted to make banks safer and stronger would be repealed, and replaced by a phony choose-your-own regulatory regime that puts the banks in the driver’s seat.” She added that, considering the massive fraud scheme that the Consumer...
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Opposition to Chairman Hensarling’s “Wrong Choice Act” continues to mount: From Advocacy Groups: Hensarling Plan Would Dramatically Weaken Financial Regulation, Americans for Financial Reform Most Americans approve of the reforms in Dodd-Frank and want to see financial regulation made tougher, not weaker … In addition to repealing many of the reform measures adopted in response to the financial crisis of 2008, Hensarling would burden regulators with a series of crushing new procedural duties tha...
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Today, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the Republican plan to gut the Dodd-Frank Act. Committee Democrats and the Democratic witness, Georgetown University Law Professor Adam Levitin, explained how this plan would benefit special interests and expose us to another financial crisis. “The Choice Act is a bad choice, is a recipe for financial disaster. It prioritizes ideologically driven positions over careful and serious policy analysis and reasoning, and the fate of the U...
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In opening remarks during a Financial Services Committee hearing today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the Committee’s Ranking Member, denounced Republicans’ deregulatory agenda that puts the needs of special interests above working Americans. Waters noted that Chairman Hensarling’s legislation, the “Wrong Choice Act,” to gut Dodd-Frank would make “radical changes to our financial regulatory framework that would harm consumers and the greater economy.” This would include giving banks a “hal...
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Tomorrow, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on Chairman Hensarling’s plan to gut Wall Street Reform. Here’s why repealing Dodd-Frank is the Wrong Choice for consumers, investors, and the entire financial system: For more information on the legislation: Summary of the “Wrong Choice Act” Opposition to the “Wrong Choice Act” Waters: We Must Build on Wall Street Reform, Not Dismantle It ###
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It’s been eight years since the financial crisis devastated our economy and six years since Democrats passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to get us back on the road to recovery. As Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, I’m proud that our efforts have led to financial system that is safer, fairer, and stronger. Under the Obama Administration, we’ve had 76 straight months of job growth, the deficit has been cut by two-thirds, and American households have recovered more...
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Last night, the House of Representatives passed a harmful Republican spending bill, H.R. 5485, which would underfund the nation’s financial services regulators for fiscal year 2017 and put consumer protection and financial stability at risk. Despite Democratic efforts to improve the bill through the amendment process, Republicans pushed through this legislation, which would make it harder for financial regulators to protect consumers, investors, and the entire financial system. The bill “so grav...
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Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) – the leading Democrats on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees – issued the following statement after the U.S government removed GE Capital’s designation as “systemically important” to the financial system. The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which includes the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, rescinded GE Capital’s designation for stricter oversight after the firm made changes to reduce its thr...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, released the following statement on legislation Chairman Hensarling unveiled yesterday to repeal critical parts of the Dodd-Frank Act, which would make financial markets less safe and put consumers at risk: “Chairman Hensarling’s plan to kill Wall Street Reform puts special interests ahead of American consumers,” Rep. Waters said. “The Wrong Choice Act would allow megabanks and other financial instituti...
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In opening remarks during a Financial Services Committee markup today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the Committee’s Ranking Member, pushed back against Republican efforts to dismantle Wall Street reforms, including much-needed investor and consumer protections. Waters noted that while she supports some of the measures under consideration, she is dismayed by broader Republican attempts to undercut Dodd-Frank and the protections put in place to prevent another financial crisis. “This markup...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, denounced Chairman Jeb Hensarling’s proposal to weaken our country’s financial and consumer protections: “Today, just steps from Wall Street, Chairman Hensarling unveiled a special interest wish list that would deregulate the financial sector to the detriment of consumers and investors. In the six years since Democrats saved our economy from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Republi...
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Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, issued the following statement on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s efforts to protect consumers from abusive lending practices: “The CFPB has taken an important step today to rein in payday lenders that prey on financially vulnerable Americans. These loans often come with outrageous terms, such as interest rates that can top 1,000 percent, and trap millions of Americans a year in a cycl...
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During floor consideration of H.R. 3340, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, urged rejection of the bill, which would undermine the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Office of Financial Research (OFR) by subjecting their funding to Congressional appropriations and interfering with their research. The OFR and the FSOC are funded by fees on the largest financial institutions, similar to how the banking regulators set and fu...
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Today, Democrats on the Financial Services Committee voted against Republican attempts to weaken consumer protection and Wall Street reform in effort to produce illusory budget savings as part of the Majority’s failed budget process. The party-line votes were as follows: H.R. 1486, the Taking Account of Bureaucrats’ Spending Act (33-20): The bill would repeal the current independent funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and instead subject the Bureau to the annual Congressio...
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At a Financial Services Committee markup of two bills designed to undercut the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, denounced the measures as efforts to disarm our financial regulators and weaken reforms established after the 2008 crisis. Waters criticized both measures as “budget gimmicks to generate illusory savings.” For example, H.R. 1486 would only generate savings if Congr...
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, released the following statement in response to the Committee Chairman’s dangerous plan to roll back the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: “This is just another attempt by the majority to gut administration policies that have helped millions of Americans. The Dodd-Frank law was enacted on the heels of the worst financial crisis our generation has seen. In the five-plus years since, our fin...
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In opening remarks during a Financial Services Committee markup today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the Committee’s Ranking Member, both scolded Committee Republicans on their attempts to once again roll back investor protections and also called for the Committee to focus on addressing poverty and homelessness in the United States. Waters noted that while some of the measures under consideration today were brought forward in good faith, concerns remain that Committee Republicans’ ultimate...
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In opening remarks during today’s semi-annual Humphrey-Hawkins hearing with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, commended the progress made under the leadership of the Federal Reserve, Democrats in Congress, and the Obama administration, but noted that “significant work remains” to elevate the needs of the most vulnerable populations. In her remarks, Waters also raised concerns with the Federal Reserve'...
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