{"id":36334,"date":"2024-12-24T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=36334"},"modified":"2024-12-24T22:01:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T04:01:08","slug":"elon-musk-wants-to-delete-many-americans-financial-lifeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=36334","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk wants to \u2018delete\u2019 many Americans\u2019 financial lifeline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly every exit poll conducted on Election Day found that, more than any other issues, voters\u2019 concerns about the economy<\/u><\/a> helped to return Donald Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>to the White House and put Republicans back in charge of both houses of Congress. Americans who felt the sting of inflation and who had trouble making ends meet, as companies steadily increased prices for essential goods<\/u><\/a> like groceries and clothing, voted in the hopes that a new administration and new Congress would bring relief for their families.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it is especially surprising that one of the first federal agencies to come under scrutiny from the incoming administration is one that has returned billions of dollars to many of the same consumers who were counting on leaders in Washington to look out for their wallets.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Nov. 27, Elon Musk\u2002<\/u><\/a>\u2014 who, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked by President-Elect Trump with running a new Department of Government Efficiency<\/u><\/a> \u2014 posted on his platform X that he wants to \u201cDelete CFPB,\u201d<\/u><\/a> referring to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency, Musk said, was part of a problem of \u201ctoo many duplicative regulatory agencies\u201d in Washington. But there are no other agencies in the federal government returning money to Americans\u2019 bank accounts in the way the CFPB does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its founding, the agency has returned more than $19 billion<\/u><\/a> in cash to people who have been scammed by financial institutions, including predatory payday lenders and even some of the largest banks in the country. It has done so under Republican and Democratic presidents, including major actions against Wells Fargo and Equifax during President Trump\u2019s first term in office, which, combined, returned $425 million to consumers. (Those actions both began under the Obama administration, but Trump\u2019s CFPB directors oversaw the execution of those fines.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The money recovered is made available to those who have been impacted by the institutions\u2019 wrongdoing through the CFPB\u2019s victims\u2019 relief fund. To date, more than 200 million Americans have been eligible for payments from the fund. The agency has also cancelled many consumers\u2019 debts altogether and reduced loan principles for many others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, just days after Musk posted his message on X, the CFPB announced<\/u><\/a> that it was mailing refund checks to more than 4 million people who were scammed by so-called credit repair companies, including Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com, which illegally collected fees from consumers seeking relief for the effects of economic woes weighing down them and their families. The companies will pay $2.7 billion in consumer redress and civil penalties; $1.8 billion of that will go directly to those who lost money as a result of the scam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no wonder the agency enjoys broad, bipartisan support<\/u><\/a>, with more than eight in 10 Americans supporting the CFPB\u2019s various enforcement actions. In red and blue states, Americans seem to support returning money to those who have been cheated.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency\u2019s impact is felt in other ways, too. In Oklahoma, CFPB collected evidence that helped retired Lt. Col. Susan Parisi in her fight against loan company GreenSky<\/u><\/a> \u2014 which scammed her into a high-interest loan she never agreed to. The CFPB found that GreenSky was using \u201cdeceptive\u201d and \u201cfraudulent\u201d tactics and ordered the company<\/u><\/a> to return $9 million to consumers. My organization is representing Lt. Col. Parisi in her class action on behalf of others who were scammed by GreenSky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why is an agency that has been so effective, and returned so much money to so many people, being targeted for \u201cdeletion?\u201d Because, in the course of holding wrongdoers accountable, it has crossed paths with some of the most powerful people in the country.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk\u2019s post on X, for example, seems to have been prompted by complaints from Marc Andreessen<\/u><\/a>, a venture capitalist whose companies have been sanctioned (and, in the case of LendUp Loans, shuttered) because of CFPB investigations and actions. Andreessen accused the agency of \u201cterrorizing financial institutions,\u201d and was clearly infuriated when the CFPB found that LendUp had misled customers about high-interest loans and overcharged U.S. service personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President-elect Trump and Republicans in Congress should not let Andreessen\u2019s views overshadow the overwhelming opinion among Americans that the agency is doing important work that makes a real difference to those who turn to financial institutions and lenders for help during tough financial times. By one count, even under the first Trump administration\u2019s CFPB directors \u2014\u202fwho tended to enforce far fewer fines against companies than Biden and Obama appointees \u2014 the agency brought more than $1 billion<\/u><\/a> in redress back to consumers\u2019 wallets. That\u2019s direct relief, and money in wallets, for millions of Americans. \u201cDeleting\u201d the agency would almost certainly ensure that no such future relief ever reaches consumers again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, neither Musk nor the incoming administration can completely eliminate the CFPB, whose funding comes from the Federal Reserve in a model, upheld by the U.S.\u2002 Supreme Court<\/u><\/a>, that is meant to protect it from political meddling. Republicans and Democrats alike should ensure that firewall remains in place, and the CFPB remains on the job, if they\u2019re serious about providing real, meaningful economic relief to Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharon McGowan is the chief executive officer of legal advocacy organization Public Justice.<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly every exit poll conducted on Election Day found that, more than any other issues, voters\u2019 concerns about the economy helped to return Donald Trump\u2002to the White House and put Republicans back in charge of both houses of Congress. Americans who felt the sting of inflation and who had trouble making ends meet, as companies steadily increased prices for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[2074,1252,1330,1230],"class_list":["post-36334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-economy","tag-inflation","tag-musk","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36336,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36334\/revisions\/36336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}