[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19079-19080]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NOMINATION OF RICHARD CORDRAY

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I have come to the floor on numerous 
occasions this year to discuss the distressed state of America's middle 
class. In fact, in our committee, we have had a series of hearings 
looking at the state of the middle class and what is happening to the 
middle class in America. In recent decades, our Nation's once secure 
middle class has struggled in the face of stagnant wages, declining job 
security, rising indebtedness, and disappearing pensions, not to 
mention sharply higher costs for health care, education, food, and 
energy.
  It wasn't always this way. In the three decades after World War II, 
America's middle class grew rapidly. Incomes rose steadily as the 
middle class secured its fair share of the expanding national wealth. 
The Federal Government invested generously in infrastructure building, 
innovation, and education, vastly expanding opportunity for people to 
move into the middle class. America became a more equal, fair, and just 
society, built on a solid bedrock of a strong middle class.
  I am an example of that. My father had an eighth grade education. He 
was a coal miner. My mother was an immigrant with very little formal 
education. Yet their three children were able to go to good schools, 
get good jobs, and get an education. All three of their children 
graduated from Iowa State University, a great land grant college, 
because it didn't cost very much and we could afford to go there and we 
were able to enter the middle class from those humble beginnings.
  But beginning in the 1970s, much of that progress started to come to 
a halt. Our manufacturing base declined, and the U.S. economy became 
increasingly dominated by financial markets and Wall Street--a trend 
that was accelerated by ill-advised deregulation. Soaring profits and 
sky-high salaries attracted more of our Nation's best and brightest to 
pursue careers in finance at the expense of engineering, teaching, and 
public service.
  Wall Street bankers were emboldened by deregulation. They were 
incentivized by huge salaries and bonuses to take ever greater risks, 
and they devised ever more exotic and risky investment schemes. As we 
all know, in 2008, this frenzy of greed and recklessness culminated in 
the catastrophic meltdown of our Nation's financial system. This 
economic crisis was a hammer blow to our already struggling middle 
class. The value of Americans' homes and retirement accounts plummeted, 
millions lost their jobs or were forced into foreclosure, and hopes for 
the future dimmed.
  In the wake of this financial crash, with its pervasive damage to the 
middle class, the American people demanded action to rein in the worst 
abuses of Wall Street and to prevent a replay of 2008. This led to the 
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act--let me 
repeat that, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act--the 
most sweeping reform of our financial system since the Great 
Depression. For hundreds of millions of American consumers in their 
everyday lives, no aspect of this law is more important and 
transformative than the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau. Again, read the words of the legislation. It is the Wall Street 
Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Therefore, a big part of the bill 
was to build in consumer protections, and one of those was to create 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  I have come to the floor in strong support of the nomination of 
Richard Cordray to be Director of this Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau. The idea behind this bureau is very simple. We need a cop on 
the beat looking out for the best interests of consumers who use 
financial products, just as we have regulators looking out for the 
financial health of banks.
  A strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will ensure consumers 
are not lured into debt through hidden fees, for example. It will 
simplify disclosures and reduce paperwork so consumers aren't faced 
with mountains of paperwork they can't understand. It will oversee 
providers of consumer credit, such as payday lenders, which for years 
have acted like banks without facing any kind of banking regulation. 
Additionally, as student debt surpasses credit card debt as the largest 
source of consumer debt--which has already happened, by the way, that 
student debt right now is larger than credit card debt--this Consumer 
Protection Bureau can play a critical role in helping families better 
understand the increasing challenges of facing a college education and 
financing it as well as bringing some sanity to the private student 
loan marketplace.
  Finally, a key function of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 
will also provide help to our veterans through the Office of Service 
Member Affairs. Sadly, too often our servicemembers fall victim to 
abusive financial traps upon their return home. The Bureau has made an 
outstanding choice for leadership of this office with the selection of 
Mrs. Hollister Petraeus. But cynically, my Republican colleagues have 
chosen to protect the unscrupulous lenders that prey on military 
families. They would rather neuter the entire agency, have no Director, 
than to fully empower Mrs. Petraeus to protect military personnel and 
their families from all forms of predatory lending activities.
  These steps are essential elements of helping to tilt the scales of 
our economy back into balance so that once again we put the interests 
of the 99 percent of Americans who use financial products ahead of the 
1 percent who profit from them.
  I was deeply disappointed when our Republican colleagues voted 
against the Wall Street reform bill that should have been 
overwhelmingly a bipartisan bill. But now the bill is law, and guess 
what. My Republican friends are doing everything in their power to 
prevent it from doing its important job.
  Earlier this year, 44 Republican Senators served notice that they 
would not

[[Page 19080]]

confirm anyone--let me repeat, they would not confirm anyone--to the 
position of Director unless structural changes are made to the Bureau 
that would effectively take away its ability to stand up for consumers. 
The changes they have demanded are unfair and unreasonable. No other 
independent financial regulator has its rules subject to veto by other 
regulatory agencies. To suggest that the only regulator with a primary 
mission to protect everyday hard-working Americans should face 
unprecedented levels of oversight simply does not make sense. Once 
again, the Republicans have brazenly put the interests of Wall Street, 
payday lenders, and unscrupulous mortgage lenders ahead of the 
interests of Main Street consumers.
  To restore the American economy to its place, we need a financial 
system that works for them. This means a financial system where 
consumers choose services based on a full and transparent understanding 
of the costs of those services. But absent a Director, the Consumer 
Finance Protection Bureau won't be able to supervise payday lenders, 
debt collectors, or private student lenders. They won't be able to make 
it easier for the good actors in the financial system--our community 
banks, for example, or our credit unions--to compete against those who 
are making a large profit by unfairly taking advantage of unsuspecting 
consumers.
  Richard Cordray is a superb choice to serve as the first Director of 
this Bureau. As attorney general of Ohio, he was a strong and fair 
advocate for consumers. His work has earned him the endorsement of 
bankers, CEOs, and civil rights leaders across the State of Ohio. He is 
a public servant of the highest caliber who deserves to be given the 
opportunity to lead this critically important Bureau.
  As a matter of fundamental fairness to hard-working Americans on Main 
Street, we need an effective, evenhanded Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau. Mr. Cordray deserves the opportunity to lead this new Bureau.
  I call upon my Republican colleagues, at long last, to put the 
interests of consumers ahead of the interests of those whose reckless 
pursuit of profits and bonuses have caused so much harm to our society 
and economy. I call upon my Republican colleagues to ignore the legions 
of Wall Street lobbyists who are urging them to disable and, if 
possible, kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  Richard Cordray is a dedicated and impartial public servant who will 
put the best interests of American consumers first. We should give him 
that opportunity. I hope my colleagues will join me in strongly 
supporting his nomination.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.

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