Voters Want Strong Oversight of Wall Street and Back New Consumer Cop

Media Contacts
Elizabeth Weyant

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has Strong Success Record on First Birthday

MASSPIRG

Boston, MA—Financial reforms enacted in response to the financial meltdown remain popular with voters, a new opinion poll by Lake Research Partners shows. With just one year of work under its belt, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a strong record of successes for consumers despite facing constant unfounded political attacks.

The poll was commissioned by AARP, National Council of La Raza (NCLR) the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) to mark the two-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the legislation that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Congress created the CFPB to protect consumers from the hazards of a lack of regulation that caused the financial crisis, said Lizzi Weyant, staff attorney at MASSPIRG. “Polls show that the American people want strong financial protections over Wall Street, and the CFPB is meeting that need.”

Key findings from the poll show that voters favor the Dodd-Frank financial reform law by a 53-point margin (73-20) and the CFPB by a 40-point margin. Supporters cross party lines, and a majority feel that the CFPB is necessary. Two-thirds of voters support a state’s right to pass and enforce stronger consumer protections and the prevention of federal overrides. In the commonwealth, our consumer protection laws often go beyond the scope of existing federal laws.

Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial reform remarked that “voters across the board are intensely supportive of stronger consumer protections. Strong majorities of bipartisan voters say that we need tougher rules for Wall Street and they do not want Congress to override a state’s ability to enforce consumer protections at the state level.”

MASSPIRG and AFR also released a summary of ten key CFPB achievements and priority projects already underway. For a fact sheet detailing the CFPB’s successes and priority projects as well as the Lake Research Partners memo summarizing the poll, please visit www.masspirg.org.

“The CFPB has already accomplished a lot for consumers,” concluded Weyant. “Congress needs to continue to listen to the public, not the well-heeled opponents of financial reform, and let the CFPB do its job for Main Street as America’s first financial agency with only one job: protecting consumers.”

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MASSPIRG is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization.  For more information, visit www.masspirg.org.

MASSPIRG is a founding member of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of more than 250 national, state and local consumer, civil rights, investor, retiree, community, labor, religious, business and other groups who have come together to reform the financial industry.