Blog

Contact: Staff

Obama Threatens to Veto Bill Giving Small Business Greater Voice in CFPB Rulemaking


Washington, May 4, 2015 - As America celebrates Small Business Week, here’s an important editorial on President Obama’s threat to veto H.R. 1195, a bipartisan bill designed to give small businesses the opportunity to have their voices heard at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee by a vote of 53-5 and the House last month by a vote of 235-183.

As Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC) said, “Too often, CFPB regulations designed for massive, ‘systemic risk’ financial institutions end up hurting small businesses, credit unions and community banks.  This bipartisan legislation will restore balance, continuing strong protections for consumers while allowing small businesses the freedom to grow and create good paying jobs.”

Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) praised the legislation:  “An agency as powerful as the CFPB will benefit from the advice of small businesses, community banks and credit unions. The CFPB should listen to them so it can issue smart regulations rather than dumb regulations that harm Main Street America.”

Editorial:  Obama Threatens To Veto Bill Giving Small Biz Greater Voice In CFPB Rulemaking
Investor’s Business Daily – May 1, 2015

President Obama claims to champion small business, yet he's threatening to veto a bipartisan bill to give small businesses and banks a voice in regulation so that new rules won't overburden them and kill jobs.

The White House warned Congress last week that it opposes a bill to make the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau more accountable to small businesses.

HR 1195, which passed by a 235-183 vote margin, would force the CFPB to pay attention to the concerns of small businesses, community banks and credit unions when developing new rules and regulations.

Small business owners, along with the public and press, have been barred from CFPB meetings with radical activist advisors.

CFPB Director Richard Cordray and other top officials met behind closed doors with his hand-picked Consumer Advisory Board, which has undue influence over financial regulatory policy. Secret talks have covered issues ranging from new mortgage regulations to onerous new rules for auto lenders and payday lenders.

It's critical that the financial community knows how these powerful officials are scheming with the radical nonprofit sector to control it. CFPB has the power to regulate virtually every consumer financial transaction in the U.S.

Its 25-member Consumer Advisory Board includes former Acorn activists, trial lawyers who make a living suing banks, and even a member of the Democratic National Committee. Some have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant money to gin up housing and lending discrimination complaints.

These radicals not only advise the government on new bank rules but also influence their enforcement actions against creditors.

Right now, CFPB is not consulting with small businesses and lenders before making rules that harm them, even though they make up the backbone of the economy. In 2013, for instance, a small-business man drove to Jackson, Miss., to attend a meeting of the Consumer Advisory Board but was turned away. "We just don't allow anybody from the public into these meetings," Bobby Riggs said he was gruffly told by a CFPB official.

But the new House bill, introduced by Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., would establish a new Small Business Advisory Board to give such owners a voice in CFPB affairs and create some balance in an agency that has shown a strong anti-business bias.

It would also create a permanent Community Bank Advisory Council and a Credit Union Advisory Council. The business advisory boards will be paid for by making a tiny reduction — 0.1% — in the amount of funds that the CFPB is allowed to draw from the Federal Reserve over the next 10 years.

Hillary Clinton recently said that she was "surprised" to learn that small businesses were struggling. For an explanation, she can look at all the red tape with which CFPB is strangling them, in addition to ObamaCare mandates.

Obama argues that he opposes Pittenger's sensible bill because it would slightly reduce CFPB spending to offset the cost of the new boards. But the real reason is: he doesn't want business owners to loosen the death grip that radical anti-business activists have on the agency.

A pressure group that Sen. Elizabeth Warren set up to create CFPB — Americans for Financial Reform — is blitzing Congress to defeat the bill. In letters to Democrats, it warns them that the legislation is "a Trojan Horse designed to limit the Consumer Bureau's work" and strongly urges them to help kill it in the Senate before it gets to Obama's desk.

Some of the most radical lobbyists in Washington — including La Raza, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Greenlining Institute, National People's Action and SEIU — have signed the letters.

What they're really worried about is losing their radical hold over CFPB and the financial sector.

Print version of this document