[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 188 (Thursday, November 29, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7209-S7210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Kathy Kraninger

  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, 10 years ago, greedy financial 
institutes crashed our economy and crushed working families all across 
this country. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, millions lost 
their homes, and millions lost their life savings. That crisis was no 
accident, and it was no act of God. It was caused because Washington 
looked the other way while greedy Wall Street bankers scammed hard-
working American families. It can happen again if we let it.
  If we learned anything from the financial crisis that nearly drove 
our economy over a cliff, it is that American families desperately need 
a strong consumer watchdog. Before the crisis, financial institutions 
sold consumers predatory loans that were like grenades with their pins 
pulled out. When they exploded, they wiped out trillions of dollars of 
wealth and caused millions of people to lose their jobs, their savings, 
or their homes.
  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to level the 
playing field for consumers and make sure that Washington never again 
looks the other way while millions of families get squeezed.
  On June 18, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intent to 
nominate Kathleen Kraninger as Director of the CFPB. Ms. Kraninger is a 
political appointee at OMB who has spent more than a decade working on 
homeland security policy in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill. 
She has never--I repeat, never--worked on consumer protection issues 
either in public service or in the private sector. She has zero track 
record of standing up for consumers.
  The White House championed Ms. Kraninger's experience as a manager 
when announcing her nomination. A White House official stated that Ms. 
Kraninger ``will bring . . . much-needed management experience [to the 
CFPB].'' A quick search on Google shows that is bogus.
  Ms. Kraninger's tenure at OMB has been marred by systemic management 
failures. As an OMB official with primary responsibility over the 
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, Ms. Kraninger was one of 
the officials responsible for managing and implementing President 
Trump's zero-tolerance policy. The policy resulted in a humanitarian 
catastrophe in which thousands of children were ripped from the arms of 
their mamas and daddies and thrown into cages.
  Ms. Kraninger bungled the response to the three catastrophic 
hurricanes of 2017. Under Ms. Kraninger's leadership, OMB's budget 
requests in the wake of Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Harvey were too 
little, too late.
  Ms. Kraninger oversaw a budget that, if enacted, would have 
exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the Nation's affordable housing 
crisis.
  No, it isn't Ms. Kraninger's management experience that got her a 
giant promotion; it is her enthusiasm for Mick Mulvaney's anti-consumer 
agenda that earned her this reward from President Trump. How do I know 
that? I asked Ms. Kraninger if she disagreed with one single action 
that Mr. Mulvaney took during the year he controlled the CFPB. She 
said: ``I cannot identify any actions that Acting Director Mulvaney has 
taken with which I disagree.'' Not a single one. That means she agrees 
with Mick Mulvaney's decision to drop a lawsuit against payday lenders 
who were charging vulnerable buyers 900 percent interest. She agrees 
with Mick

[[Page S7210]]

Mulvaney's decision to gut CFPB's office that fights lending 
discrimination, which was designed to make sure communities of color 
aren't targeted with the most abusive loans, as they were before the 
financial crisis. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to stop 
checks that ensure that banks don't charge our military sky-high 
interest rates. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to censor 
reports to Congress and give student loan companies a free pass when 
they rip off students. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to load 
up the CFPB with more than a dozen political appointees to muzzle the 
CFPB's professional staff and keep them from doing their job. It is 
hard to imagine a stronger indication that Ms. Kraninger intends to 
continue Mr. Mulvaney's harmful trajectory of weakening CFPB to benefit 
big financial institutions at the expense of consumers.
  Ms. Kraninger has absolutely no experience in consumer finance 
whatsoever, but she has been nominated to head up the Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau because she is passionately committed to 
keeping it from leveling the playing field for working families. No 
thanks.
  We have a lot of hard decisions to make in this body, but this one is 
a no-brainer. Hard-working American families deserve a fighter as the 
Director of the CFPB. When the CFPB fights for consumers, students can 
manage their loans. When the CFPB fights for consumers, servicemembers 
can serve their country without worrying that their families will be 
crushed by debt. When the CFPB fights for consumers, seniors can retire 
with dignity. When the CFPB fights for consumers, 29 million families 
get checks for over $12 billion from financial institutions that 
cheated them--and that happened in just 6 years.
  Working families need a CFPB Director who is a fighter with a proven 
track record of making the consumer marketplace safe and aggressively 
pursuing companies that cheat their customers. Kathleen Kraninger is 
not that person. Let's do our job. Let's reject this nominee.

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