20 July 2016
Jon Tester joins Tim Kaine in kissing banks and dissing consumers
Sen. Time Kaine would make a better vice president than Mike Pence. But his stock at Flathead Memo dropped to the basement this afternoon after the Huffington Post reported that Kaine is kissing-up to the big banks and failing to protect consumers:
Kaine signed two letters on Monday urging federal regulators to go easy on banks ― one to help big banks dodge risk management rules, and another to help small banks avoid consumer protection standards.
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On the small bank side, Kaine pressed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray to exempt “community banks and credit unions” from new rules. Doing so would leave these institutions, which include banks with up to $10 billion in assets, more lightly regulated than they were before the financial crisis. The letter, sent on Monday, was signed by 69 other senators [including Jon Tester].
Small banks were not, for the most part, involved in the subprime mortgage crisis. But many commit other consumer protection abuses. These violations do not spark massive financial downturns, but they can be real problems for the households that get ripped off.
As Kaine joins the deregulatory fight, several other lawmakers are pushing the CFPB in the opposite direction. On Wednesday, 28 senators sent a letter to the agency urging them to toughen up their new rule against abusive payday lending. Kaine didn’t sign it.
Sen. Jeff Merkley did, as did Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and even Sen. Chuck Schumer.
If Clinton wants to attract the supporters of Bernie Sanders, choosing Tim Kaine as her vice president is the wrong way to do it.