Maxine Waters

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), who has spent an awful lot of time working on this issue with all of us.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from New York, Representative Maloney, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Representative Lynch, who is a member of the Financial Services Committee and is also the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and the Census, and I thank him for his hard work in putting this bill together.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey, Representative Pascrell, and I thank him for his input on this bill.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Nydia Velazquez, a member of the Financial Services Committee. (Ms. VELAZQUEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor). The Florida delegation, both Democrats and Republicans, has been absolutely magnificent in helping to get us to this point, and I thank Representatives Castor, Hastings, Buchanan, and all of those from the Florida delegation for all of the work they have done.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon, Representative Blumenauer.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison), the chief deputy whip who also serves on the Financial Services Committee and is cochair of the Progressive Caucus.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, we have one speaker on the way.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations.

Ms. WATERS. I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman.

Ms. WATERS. I continue to reserve the balance of our time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Ms. WATERS. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I want to, once again, reiterate my strong opposition to this harmful legislation which will weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created to protect consumers and defend them against bad actors and practices throughout our financial system. Just in case we are losing sight of what this Bureau is all about, we have many citizens out there who are the victims of false advertising. People advertise something. They advertise a price. They advertise a product. They go to buy the product. It is not there. It costs more money. Debt collectors, how many of our citizens have been harassed by debt collectors, calling them in the middle of the night, asking for information, and charging them with things they have never been involved in? Don't forget those payday loans. Poor people run out of money, go to a payday lender, get charged 500 percent for a payday loan. What about those private postsecondary schools where all of those students who are trying to get an education are forced into getting loans, are encouraged to get loans, get ripped off, don't learn anything, can't get a job? What about those mortgage lenders who tricked all of those people into mortgage loans and they end up losing their homes? What about discrimination against the aged? What about what they did to our good men and women who served in different branches of the military for all of us and got ripped off by payday lenders? This is what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is all about. I don't know how anyone could think that we shouldn't have protection for our consumers. Our consumers are finding out that, finally, we have something. They are calling our telephone number, (855) 411-2372, to get some help. They are going to our Web site, www.consumerfinance.gov. Over 289,000 citizens have gone to this www.consumerfinance.gov Web site. They have called this telephone number, (855) 411-2372, because, finally, they have a bureau that is paying attention to all of the rip- offs, all of the fraudulent advertising, all of the overcharging of fees, all of what they did not have protection from in the past. We realized, at some point in time, that all of our regulatory agencies that were supposed to be paying attention were not. Now, we have protection. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes. I rise in opposition to this amendment, and I will take a moment just to respond to the gentleman from Virginia who seemed a little bit disturbed that we would claim that they do not care about consumers. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, sir, and because of the way that the Republicans have opposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the manner in which we have described today that you have attempted to dismantle this Bureau, the way that you have tried to deny it having a strong Director, for all of those reasons, it is absolutely clear that you do not wish to have a Bureau that protects our consumers. And so when we make these charges, we make them because we have proof. We have the information, we have the actions, and we have all that you have done to demonstrate that you really don't want a Bureau to protect the consumers of this country. The fact is that Americans want banks to be regulated in order to prevent the kind of economic catastrophe that we are recovering from to this day. Because Republicans haven't been able to repeal the Dodd- Frank Act, you have focused on making it impossible for the agencies to enact the rules required by the Wall Street reform bill. Your new strategy is to prevent our regulators from functioning by saddling them with burdensome and duplicative cost-benefit requirements. Let's take a moment to talk about the cost of the financial crisis. The United States Department of the Treasury measured the cost of the financial crisis at $19.2 trillion in loss of household wealth and 8.8 million in lost jobs. Communities of color were hit particularly hard, losing over 50 percent of their household wealth. Millions of borrowers have been foreclosed upon, and millions more remain underwater and struggling to stay in their homes to this day. A report by the Government Accountability Office on the cost-benefit analysis of the Dodd-Frank Act stated: If the cost of a future crisis is expected to be in the trillions of dollars, then the act likely would need to reduce the probability of a future financial crisis by only a small percent for its expected benefit to equal the act's expected cost. Beyond all of this, this amendment is a solution in search of a problem. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already required to perform cost-benefit analysis on its rules and evaluate impacts on small businesses. The CFPB has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to minimizing the impact of its rules on small banking institutions and small businesses. I yield back the balance of my time.