Tell Congress to Protect Consumers and Say NO to Financial Choice Act

Wall Street’s Washington cronies are trying to out-do themselves with their latest legislative proposal. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would eviscerate critical financial regulations designed to restore balance to our rigged financial system. That bill, the Financial Choice Act (HR 10), will soon get a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives—and we need your help to stop it.

The Choice Act aims to roll back many of the policies implemented after the 2008 financial crisis to protect working people from predatory lenders and prevent Wall Street from crashing the economy again. Once again, Rep. Hensarling and other extreme lawmakers are trying to hand more power over our communities to big banks, corporations and greedy CEOs.

Add your name now at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-congress-dont-gut-the-laws-that-protect-consumers-and-the-economy to tell Congress to protect consumers and the economy, not gut the rules that make our economy safer.

The Dodd-Frank Act was passed in 2010 to rein in predatory lending practices and excessive risk-taking on Wall Street—practices that led to the financial collapse that caused millions of everyday Americans to lose their jobs, homes and retirement savings less than a decade ago.

If this bill is passed, many of the most important policies put in place under Dodd-Frank will go down the drain.

This bill is like “Christmas in June” for financial institutions of all types. The legislation opens the doors, once again, to excessive borrowing and risky practices by too-big-to-fail banks. It would make it easier for private equity funds to manipulate the financial system and exploit investors, mortgage lenders selling predatory subprime mortgages, and payday lenders pushing products that trap consumers in a cycle of ever-increasing interest payments. It also discourages transparency by empowering greedy corporate CEOs to keep their companies’ CEO-to-worker pay ratios a secret and making it more difficult for shareholders to submit proposals for consideration at annual meetings.

This is—as our friends at Americans for Financial Reform would put it—an astonishingly terrible idea. We need to tell Congress to oppose this bill right now, before it has a chance to pick up any more momentum.

Add your name now and tell Congress to protect regulations that guard working people against a rigged financial system.