Kraninger, k djt

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">dereg payday loans</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">format problem see bak</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump mofo, reg capture:</font></p><p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/cfpb-coronavirus-predatory-payday-loans"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/cfpb-coronavirus-predatory-payday-loans</font></a></p><div data-reactid="217" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">ON JULY 30,</span> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Chair Maxine Waters opened the House Committee on Financial Services <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=406821" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">hearing</a> with a frustrate and ominous message: “I would like to welcome Director Kraninger to what I hope will be her last appearance before this committee as CFPB director.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kathy Kraninger was being called to <a href="https://twitter.com/RealBankReform/status/1289186647242833920" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">account</a> for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s failure to protect consumers during the coronavirus pandemic.</span> In separate <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=406783" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">House</a> and <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/07/10/2020/the-consumer-financial-protection-bureaus-semi-annual-report-to-congress" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate</a> hearings, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">committee members levied their sharpest criticisms against the agency’s plan to deregulate small-dollar lending by repealing key consumer protections on predatory products like payday and auto title loans. The final rule decided on by the agency tore out the heart of the policy by rescinding provisions that required lenders to assess a borrower’s ability to repay their loan.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em"><b>small-dollar lenders, such as Speedy Cash and TitleMax, intentionally design high-cost, low-quality products to make it almost impossible for borrowers to repay their loans under the original terms</b>. Finance fees and average annual interest rates of 400 percent prevent most borrowers from repaying payday loans in full, with borrowers ending up in debt</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em"> </span><a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201403_cfpb_report_payday-lending.pdf" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line">five months</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em"> </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em">out of the year for what was deceptively marketed as a two-week loan. Other loans within this industry are just as harmful. Ninety percent of auto title loans are</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em"> </span><a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201605_cfpb_single-payment-vehicle-title-lending.pdf" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line">re-borrowed</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em">, and 20 percent of borrowers have their vehicles repossessed. This rule makes it easier for lenders to trap borrowers in cycles of debt.</span></font></p></div><div data-reactid="228" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Payday lenders are well known for taking advantage of the precarious conditions experienced by working-class and poor people — and which disproportionately affect Black and brown people. The <a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/Supplemental_Report_060116.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">average loan amount</a> borrowed from a storefront payday lender is about $1,000. Contradicting the assumption that these lenders profit primarily from <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2015/10/emergency-savings-report-1_artfinal.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">unpredictable crises</a> such as a pay cut or medical emergency, a majority of borrowers — <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/_{/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/pewpaydaylendingreportpdf.pdf}" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">69 percent</a> — rely on payday loans to cover recurring expenses. People use these higher-cost loans to live day-to-day: buying groceries, paying bills, and making their rent or mortgage payments.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The CFPB’s rule makes this form of racial capitalism even more punishing by paving the way for predatory lenders to prey on marginalized borrowers and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">extract</span> lucrative profits. </b>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/13/irs-is-launching-new-online-tool-people-track-their-1200-tax-stimulus-payments/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">economic stimulus</a> payments that Congress approved under the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3548/text?q=product+actualizaci%C3%B3n" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">CARES Act</a> appeared to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/us/politics/coronavirus-hunger-poverty.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">help</a> people make it through the early months of the pandemic, and new applications for small-dollar loans <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2020/07/31/online-small-dollar-loans-data-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">declined</a> during March and April. Now, with Congress’s failure to extend benefits, loan applications are <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2020/07/31/online-small-dollar-loans-data-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">rising</a> steadily along with <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/21/893406577/as-protections-expire-millions-of-americans-face-threats-of-eviction" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">eviction fears</a>, <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/over-three-months-in-job-losses-remain-at-historic-levels-more-than-one-in-five-workers-are-either-on-unemployment-benefits-or-are-waiting-to-get-on/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">job losses</a>, and coronavirus <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">infection and death</a> rates. In one survey, 36 percent of lower-income households applied for some type of small-dollar loan in June and July. Black and brown households <a href="https://prosperitynow.org/sites/default/files/resources/REVISED%20FINAL%20Brief_Prosperity%20Now%20Survey%20of%20Lower-Income%20Households.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">applied</a> for these loans at a rate three times higher than did white households.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Near the end of the House Committee on Financial Services <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=406821" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">hearing</a>, Illinois Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García described CFPB’s final rule as a scary example of how the agency is working on behalf of predatory lenders instead of consumers</b>. “I represent a working-class, immigrant district. There are a lot of payday lenders in my district,” said García. “My community was hit hard by the last crisis and many people never recovered. … That’s why the CFPB was established during the last crisis to give ordinary people, like my neighbors in Chicago, their own voice. … But that’s not what we see from watching the bureau today.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">THE CFPB</span> first revealed its <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=CFPB-2016-0025-0001&contentType=pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">proposed rule</a> to regulate the small-dollar lending industry at a 2016 field hearing in Kansas City, Missouri. Up to that point, regulators had allowed the industry to escape federal oversight<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Then-Director Richard Cordray, an Obama appointee, had led the agency in conducting <a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201403_cfpb_report_payday-lending.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">extensive research</a> on the industry’s harms to borrowers.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CFPB’s decision to reveal its proposed rule in Kansas City was far from random. Kansas City and its white, wealthy suburbs were <a href="https://www.thepitchkc.com/news/article/20566194/how-kcs-wealthiest-enclaves-became-a-shadowy-nexus-of-predatory-lending" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">swimming</a> with payday and other small-dollar lenders hungry for people’s money<b>. Lenders sold payday loans with 1,000-percent interest rates nationwide out of their call center based in Overland Park, and local investors helped <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/18/news/economy/cfpb-lawsuit-payday-lenders/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">bankroll</a> these lenders.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A multibillion-dollar payday lending enterprise overseen by a man named <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1-3b-award-upheld-against-racecar-driver-scott-tucker-over-n943311" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Tucker</a> was located just a few miles away in Leawood, with businesses that had names like Cash Advance and OneClickCash. Tucker put together the <a href="https://www.thepitchkc.com/news/article/20566194/how-kcs-wealthiest-enclaves-became-a-shadowy-nexus-of-predatory-lending" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">seed funding</a> for his payday lending business in the 1990s, about the same time as the industry’s <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/quarterly/2009-vol3-1/fdic140-quarterlyvol3no1-afs-final.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">rapid</a> nationwide <a href="https://www.finhealthnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016-Financially-Underserved-Market-Size-Study_Center-for-Financial-Services-Innovation.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">expansion</a>. By his early 30s, he had already developed several <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/250964-scott-tucker-grand-jury-indictment.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">financial schemes</a> and defrauded investors out of $100,000 — credentials he used to pitch <a href="https://www.thepitchkc.com/how-kcs-wealthiest-enclaves-became-a-shadowy-nexus-of-predatory-lending/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">investors</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucker grew his payday lending business into a nationwide enterprise over the next few decades. He worked hard to keep his illegal enterprise under the radar, <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/business/race-car-driver-scott-tucker-drew-an-elaborate-facade-around-his-payday-loan-businesses/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">including</a> paying off local officials through campaign donations, creating a near-impenetrable multistate maze of shell companies, using the internet to expand his business, and <a href="https://nativefinance.org/news/scott-tucker-nears-trial-for-payday-loan-rent-a-tribe-scheme/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">exploiting</a> Native tribes for sovereign immunity. His relationships with payday lenders were hard to pin down. Tucker had succeeded in keeping his name out of states’ <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/business/payday-lending-bankrolls-auto-racers-fortune/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">earlier lawsuits</a> against the payday lenders from which he was profiting, including in Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Washington.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" /></div><div class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo" data-reactid="229" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); padding: 20px 0px 10px; margin: 7px 40px 20px 0px; float: left; width: 400px;"><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><div class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-thumbnail" data-reactid="231" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative; z-index: 1;"><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/" data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a></div><div class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-text" data-reactid="233" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h6 class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-eyebrow" data-reactid="234" kern="kern" padding-bottom="padding-bottom" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; font-kerning: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Related</font></h6><h4 class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-title" data-reactid="235" kern="kern" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; font-kerning: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump Nominee for CFPB Admits in Hearing She Has No Background in Consumer Protection or Financial Regulation</font></h4></div></div><div data-reactid="236" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 2011 investigative report <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/business/payday-lending-bankrolls-auto-racers-fortune/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">revealed</a> the sources of Tucker’s wealth, publicly chaining him to the payday lenders whose affiliations he had worked so hard to suppress. The Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://consumerist.com/2016/10/03/operators-of-scammy-payday-lender-ordered-to-pay-1-26-billion/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">filed suit</a> against Tucker in 2012, and Tucker and his attorney were <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/02/10/news/payday-lending-scott-tucker-arrest/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">arrested</a> on racketeering and other charges in 2016. Tucker was sentenced to 16 years in prison, and the FTC won their largest penalty at the time with a <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/white-collar-and-criminal-law/scott-tucker-13-billion-payday-lending-judgment-upheld" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">judgment</a> for $1.3 billion in 2018.</span> The <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">FTC <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2018/09/28/ftc-sends-505m-in-checks-to-tucker-s-payday.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">returned</a> $505 million to the people Tucker had defrauded. The judge presiding over the decision <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1-3b-award-upheld-against-racecar-driver-scott-tucker-over-n943311" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">estimated</a> that Tucker had victimized 1 percent of the U.S. population through predatory loans and fraudulent activity.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucker wasn’t even the only person from Kansas City running a payday loan enterprise. Numerous Kansas City-area moguls have been sued in recent years, including <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/09/ftc-action-halts-payday-loan-scheme-bilked-tens-millions" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Timothy Coppinger</a>, <a href="https://shawneemissionpost.com/2016/02/11/richard-moseley-sr-arrested-on-charges-related-to-161-million-fraudulent-payday-loan-operation-47329" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Frampton T. Rowland, Richard Moseley Sr.</a>, <a href="https://shawneemissionpost.com/2014/09/24/federal-authorities-file-suit-4-northeast-johnson-county-men-payday-loan-schemes-31960" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Moseley Jr.</a>, and <a href="https://www.thepitchkc.com/news/blog/20859633/josh-landy-richard-moseley-jr-named-in-payday-lawsuit-from-consumer-financial-protection-bureau" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Josh Landy</a>. The initial rule stopped them from abusive practices, such as charging unaffordable payments that forced repeat borrowing and created debt traps.</font></p></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">trump was elected to the presidency a few months after the Kansas City field hearing. Since that time, his appointees, Interim Director <a href="https://theintercept.com/search/?s=mick+mulvaney" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Mick Mulvaney</a> and current Director Kathy Kraninger, have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/01/cfpb-once-defended-consumers-thanks-trump-it-now-helps-companies-prey-them-instead/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">hacked away</a> at rule-making and used bureaucratic malaise to whittle away at the agency’s commitments to oversight and enforcement. One of Mulvaney’s first actions as interim director was to <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-statement-payday-rule/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">announce</a> that the agency would reconsider the small-dollar lending rule. The Trump appointees even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/business/cfpb-payday-loans-rules.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">manipulated</a> the agency’s research to make payday lenders appear less harmful. When the CFPB announced its final rule in July of this year, it hammered a nail into the coffin of the Cordray-era rule-making that steadfastly sought justice for borrowers defrauded by lenders like Tucker.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The CFPB <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-issues-final-rule-small-dollar-lending/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> the rule’s final fate as eviction moratoriums and expanded unemployment benefits<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/07/30/coronavirus-unemployment-crisis-national-emergency/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"> were expiring</a> </b>— along with any remaining hope that America could rally the collective spirit needed to fight the coronavirus. Other federal regulators followed in lock step with the CFPB. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation subsequently announced proposed <a href="https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2020/nr-occ-2020-97.html?source=email" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">rules</a> that would allow payday lenders to circumvent state interest rate caps. Moreover, <b>Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/09/heres-what-is-actually-trumps-four-executive-orders/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">executive orders</a> on payroll taxes and student loans defer payments instead of canceling them</b>. By extending these payments into the future, Trump’s executive orders actually operate a lot like payday loans: taking advantage of people’s precarious conditions by offering immediate relief while their debts accumulate with no way of repaying them. Mutually reinforcing policy decisions effectively deploy <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/a-payday-loan-chain-is-defying-state-shutdowns-to-collect-debts-in-a-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">predatory lenders</a> and their 400-percent interest rates as first <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-payday-lenders-target-consumers-hurt-by-coronavirus-11591176601" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">responders</a> to the pandemic. Not willing to throw out life vests, Trump’s government encourages people to drown in debt.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congress must act with urgency to protect borrowers from predatory lenders and to stave the flow of Black and brown income into white pockets, like Tucker’s. The Democrats’ <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800/text" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">HEROES Act</a>, if passed, would initiate another round of economic stimulus payments that would likely reduce reliance on payday loans by giving people the money they need to live. Some states are stepping up in the CFPB’s absence. Policymakers in Virginia recently passed <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+SB421" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">legislation</a> to cap interest rates at 36 percent and ensure that borrowers can repay their loans. Wisconsin issued <a href="http://www.wdfi.org/resources/indexed/site/fi/banks/20200318_EmergencyGuidance-PaydayAndLicensedLenders.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">emergency guidance</a> warning payday lenders not to raise interest rates and threatening to revoke licenses.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=406783" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">House</a> and <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/07/10/2020/the-consumer-financial-protection-bureaus-semi-annual-report-to-congress" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate</a> hearings provided a necessary public accounting of the CPFB. However, without federal intervention, people will have little choice but to rely on predatory lenders and their high-cost debt for surviving the pandemic. And they’ll have fewer protections, thanks to the CFPB’s final rule that promises to widen racial economic inequality during a pandemic instead of narrowing it.</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ref</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/cfpb-director-nominee-kathy-kraninger/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="Post-header" data-reactid="109" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; position: static; padding: 0px 40px; margin: 0px;"><div class="Post-header-grid" data-reactid="133" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 1160px; padding: 0px;"><div class="Post-header-row" data-reactid="134" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-bottom: 0px; position: static; margin-left: -20px; margin-right: -20px; width: auto !important;"><div class="Post-header-block" data-reactid="167" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px 20px; min-height: 0px; width: 960px; float: left; margin-left: 240px; position: relative; z-index: 5; box-shadow: rgb(238, 238, 238) -1px 0px;"><div data-reactid="168" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Post-title-block" data-reactid="174" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 60px;"><div class="PostByline byline" data-reactid="177" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-top: 17px; line-height: 1.28571; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; padding-bottom: 20px;"><span class="PostByline-date" data-reactid="190" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span data-reactid="191" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">July 19 2018, </font></span></span></div><div class="PostByline byline" data-reactid="177" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-top: 17px; line-height: 1.28571; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; padding-bottom: 20px;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" box-shadow="box-shadow" white="white" px="px" rgb="rgb" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase">ON THURSDAY, THE</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em"> </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em">Senate Banking Committee heard from Kathy Kraninger, an official at the Office of Management and Budget with no background in financial regulation or consumer protection.</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="Post-body" data-reactid="194" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Post-content-block-outer" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"><div class="GridContainer Post-scroll-container" data-reactid="202" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 1160px; position: relative; height: 7095px;"><div class="GridRow" data-reactid="203" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: -20px; margin-right: -20px; width: auto !important; height: 7095px;"><div class="Post-content-block" data-reactid="204" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 960px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; float: left; position: relative; z-index: 5; margin-left: 240px; box-shadow: rgb(238, 238, 238) -1px 0px;"><div class="Post-content-block-inner" data-reactid="205" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; max-width: 100%; margin-right: 230px; padding-right: 10px;"><div class="PostContent" data-reactid="208" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 40px; line-height: 1.5;"><div data-reactid="209" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Naturally, she has been nominated to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During nearly three hours of questioning, Kraninger worked hard to prevent scrutiny of what exactly she did at OMB.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I am trying to get an answer from you, and I just can’t. And this is maddening,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, reflecting a common refrain from banking committee Democrats. Time and again, Kraninger refused to describe any discussions or meetings she’d participated as the program associate director for general government programs at OMB, stressing the need to respect the “deliberative process” inside government.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I<b>f you can’t even tell us what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis, how can we expect you to be accountable at CFPB?</b>” asked Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">at <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">OMB, Kraninger happened to be tied to the two biggest humanitarian catastrophes of the Trump administration: the inadequate response to natural disasters in Puerto Rico, and the “zero tolerance” policy at the border that led to separating children from their families and locking them in cages. She has responsibility over the budgets of the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development, which have primary responsibility over those matters.</span></font></span></p></div><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the force behind the creation of the CFPB, focused on the “zero tolerance” policy</span>. Kraninger stated that she played no role in setting the policy, but also that she couldn’t describe the advice she had given about it. Warren described this as a contradiction, since giving advice denotes some level of involvement. Kraninger acknowledged that there were meetings on the “general topic” of immigration that she had attended.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Is that a yes, you were involved?” Warren asked.</b></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“I don’t want to characterize my advice –” Kraninger began, and Warren cut her off, reminding her she was under oath and lying to Congress is a crime</b>. After some more filibustering, Warren asked if Kraninger worked with DHS on a plan for family reunification, which has been slow-going. Again Kraninger declined to characterize her advice, saying it would be a “slippery slope” to start explaining internal discussions.</font></span></p></div><div data-reactid="224" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“No, it’s not a slippery slope; you don’t want to characterize because you don’t want to admit that you were part of this,” Warren said. After trying (and failing) to get Kraninger’s opinion on whether ripping children away from parents was immoral, Warren </span><a href="https://twitter.com/AlliedProgress/status/1019973814397161475" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">wrapped up</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">. “It’s fundamentally immoral and you were part of it, Miss Kraninger,” she said. “It’s a moral stain that will follow you for the rest of your life. If the Senate votes to give you a big promotion after this, then it is a stain on the senators who do so.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">After the questioning ended, someone in the gallery played the </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/children-separated-from-parents-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">now-infamous tape</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of children at a detention facility crying, briefly disrupting the hearing.</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The theatrics followed a<b> devastating </b></span><a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018.7.18%20Kraninger%20Record%20Of%20Failure.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>staff report</b></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b> Warren released yesterday, detailing Kraninger’s “record of failure” on family separation and natural disaster response in Puerto Rico.</b> The report highlighted lack of planning, budget overruns, and inadequate OMB requests for disaster relief. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/12/fema-admits-shortcomings-2017-hurricane-response/780984002/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">admitted its poor response</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> to the devastation in Puerto Rico, a lack of manpower and preparedness that led to </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619440877/puerto-rico-releases-data-on-hundreds-of-deaths-following-hurricane-maria" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">potentially thousands</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of unnecessary deaths.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Ms. Kraninger’s purported management experience and ability is the sole basis for her nomination,” reads the report, “which is why her management failures in these areas undercut any case for her nomination to run a major federal agency.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">EARLIER IN THE</span> week,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> all Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, including red state Sens. Jon Tester, Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, and Doug Jones, </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CFPB%20Hearing.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">asked for a postponement</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of the hearing, because they had yet to receive any response to document requests around </span><a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Kraninger%20Letter%20Final%206.18.18.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">family separation</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> and </span><a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20Kraninger%20on%20Puerto%20Rico%20signed%202018-07-10.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Puerto Rico</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span><b>Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, moved forward with the hearing, saying that Kraninger passed on the document request to the White House, and it was otherwise out of her hands.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s no incentive for the White House if we continue on our merry way,” replied Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the committee. “Why should the president change his behavior if there’s never a price to pay?”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">About the only time Kraninger ever gave a straight answer was to a series of rapid-fire questions from Heitkamp, D-N.D. Kraninger admitted that she has never worked in any financial capacity, either at a bank or a credit union, or as a regulator. She has had no supervision responsibilities over payday lenders, credit bureaus, insurance companies, or debt collectors. She has no experience with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Truth in Lending Act, or any other consumer protection law. She couldn’t remember any law school classes involving consumer protection. She did claim to have worked once, while in college, on a financial literacy program.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<b>The point I’m trying to make is that this is a highly technical job,” Heitkamp said. “We ought to have somebody who has experience … and who has empathy.”</b></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a second round of questioning, Warren tried to pin down Kraninger on a nonbinding budget she has drawn up for the CFPB, even though the bureau gets its funding from the Federal Reserve. That budget called for a $147 million cut to the CFPB, a drop of about 23 percent of the total. Kraninger struggled to identify any specific area that should be cut to get to that number and also tried to disclaim responsibility by calling it “the president’s budget request.” To Warren, Kraninger’s answers didn’t “reflect any knowledge of the CFPB or any commitment to the central mission of trying to protect consumers and level the playing field.”</font></span></p></div><div data-reactid="228" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kraninger’s main qualification to run the CFPB appears to be her close relationship with Mick Mulvaney, her boss at OMB and the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/21/cfpb-director-richard-cordray-mick-mulvaney-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">current acting director of the bureau</a>. There’s an </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/16/620730033/president-trump-taps-mulvaney-associate-to-lead-consumer-bureau" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">expectation</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> that she will continue his work of hobbling the bureau’s ability to function. Mulvaney has famously dropped cases against several financial operators and engaged in precious little enforcement. He </span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/01/cfpb-mick-mulvaney-lending-housing-discrimination/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">stripped power</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> from the bureau’s lending discrimination unit and </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/06/mick-mulvaney-fires-members-of-cfpb-advisory-board/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">disbanded</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> the bureau’s consumer advisory board.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">While Kraninger testified, Mulvaney’s CFPB announced a </span><a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/bcfp_triton-management-group_consent-order_2018-07.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">settlement</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> with Triton Management, a Mississippi auto title lender accused of lying to customers about add-on finance charges. The CFPB calculated that Triton concealed $1.5 million in finance charges to customers, but allowed the company to pay only $500,000 to those affected by the rip-off. In other words, CFPB sentenced Triton Management to making $1 million in illicit profit.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It was the second time in a week that Mulvaney’s CFPB has </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1017817624527265792" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">essentially discounted</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> a corporate offender on their fine for breaking the law.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>CFPB directors get a five-year term, meaning if Kraninger were seated tomorrow, she would serve through July 2023, well into the next presidential term, whether a Republican or Democrat sat in the Oval Office</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Delaying that clock gives a Mulvaney-style deregulator more time in the director’s chair. “Senators face a horrible dilemma: either approve a pawn of Trump, Mulvaney, and financial industry predators, starting the clock now on a grim five-year term, or risk starting the clock later with a different nominee who’s even worse,” said Public Citizen’s Bartlett Naylor in a statement. “Either way, Americans lose.”</span></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kraninger does have a few deep-pocketed backers. The front group Protect America’s Consumers has been </span><a href="https://protectconsumers.com/kathykraninger/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">promoting Kraninger</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">. The CFPB’s own Chief Communications Officer John Czwartacki </span><a href="https://twitter.com/CZ/status/1019340840165048320" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">linked to their website</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> on Tuesday, which the group Allied Progress </span><a href="https://twitter.com/AlliedProgress/status/1019600594632413184" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">sharply criticized</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, alleging that Czwartacki had advance knowledge of the effort.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Protect America’s Consumers appears to be a </span><a href="https://alliedprogress.org/research/anti-cfpb-astroturf-group-tied-notorious-voter-fraud-organization/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">creation of Lincoln Strategy Group</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, a group headed by </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/us/politics/nathan-sproul-a-republican-operative-long-trailed-by-voter-fraud-claims.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">scandal-ridden GOP operative</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Nathan Sproul,</span> who has been tied to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/us/politics/nathan-sproul-a-republican-operative-long-trailed-by-voter-fraud-claims.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=F1F4431669F66218F5F18E3E3B2228B9&gwt=pay" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">several</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/virginia-voter-fraud-case-expands-to-focus-on-gop-firm/2012/11/02/76285252-24eb-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">instances</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of destroying Democratic voter registration forms. The group previously </span><a href="https://sunlightfoundation.com/2016/04/26/dark-money-group-spends-58000-attacking-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">attacked the CFPB</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> in advertisements, using </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/politico-influence/2016/01/more-cfpb-shenanigans-212055#ixzz3ywx8M6sj" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">out-of-context critiques</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> from Democrats to give the impression of bipartisan opposition to the agency as a whole. Most recently, Lincoln Strategy </span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/06/11/save-our-tips-initiative-77-dc-minimum-wage-tipped-employees/" consumer="consumer" financial="Financial" protection="Protection" bureau="Bureau" director="director" kathy="Kathy" kraninger="Kraninger" is="is" facing="facing" calls="calls" to="to" resign="resign" after="after" her="her" who="who" was="was" nominated="nominated" by="by" president="President" donald="Donald" trump="Trump" and="and" confirmed="confirmed" the="the" senate="Senate" in="in" just="just" stamped="stamped" an="an" official="official" seal="seal" of="of" approval="approval" on="on" one="one" worst="worst" practices="practices" payday="payday" lenders="lenders" now="now" there="there" s="s" nothing="nothing" stopping="stopping" industry="industry" from="from" ruining="ruining" families="families" with="with" interest="interest" rates="rates" middle="middle" a="a" recession="recession" nbsp="nbsp" /><a href="https://alliedprogress.org/news/kraninger-should-resign-after-furthering-predatory-lending-in-middle-of-a-recession/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">said</a> Jeremy Funk, spokesperson for consumer watchdog group Allied Progress.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“For the sake of all U.S. consumers,” Funk added, “the director needs to step aside.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The final rule—which has been in the works for <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/06/siding-loan-sharks-over-consumers-trump-cfpb-moves-gut-payday-lender-regulations" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">more than a year</a>—rolls back Obama-era regulations requiring payday and car-title lenders to verify that borrowers have the ability to repay before approving high-interest, short-term loans. Last June, Kraninger...Payday Loan Debt Trap Tracker, Kraninger’s decision to delay the regulations cost consumers nearly $6 billion in fees.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A truly shameful thing that right in the middle of the economic distress from this pandemic, the current CFPB leadership would choose to roll back the heart of the payday lending reform rule,” <a href="https://twitter.com/RichCordray/status/1280549751730176011" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> former CFPB director Richard Cordray, who helped develop the Obama-era regulations. “Protecting consumers again takes a back seat to catering to the financial industry.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">American Banker</em> <a href="https://www.americanbanker.com/news/cfpb-makes-it-official-rescinds-cordray-era-limits-on-payday-lenders" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a> Tuesday that Kraninger’s rollback is “projected to save the payday lending industry more than $7 billion a year.”</font></p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 550px;"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1594223117398386916="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BREAKING: In a direct attack on consumers,<b> <a href="https://twitter.com/CFPBDirector?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">@CFPBDirector</a> and Donald Trump just killed protections for payday loan borrowers in the middle of a global pandemic and economic downturn. Disgraceful.  </b><a href="https://t.co/kGmCqiFqpE" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">https://t.co/kGmCqiFqpE</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Allied Progress (@AlliedProgress) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlliedProgress/status/1280536961384677379?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">July 7, 2020</a></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an August 2019 memo <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/business/cfpb-payday-loans-rules.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">obtained</a> by the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times</em>, then-CFPB staffer Jonathan Lanning accused President Donald Trump’s political appointees of manipulating the bureau’s payday lending research to justify gutting the Obama-era borrower protections. Lanning left the CFPB later that same month.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a <a href="https://www.responsiblelending.org/media/cfpb-director-kraninger-strips-away-consumer-protections-predatory-payday-loans" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">statement</a> that “there is never a good time to enable predatory loans carrying 400% interest rates, but this is the worst possible time.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The pain caused by the CFPB gutting the payday rule will be felt most by those who can least afford it, including communities of color who are disproportionately targeted by payday lenders,” Calhoun added. “Payday and car-title lenders pull borrowers into financial quicksand. The CFPB’s own research shows that four out of every five payday loans are reborrowed within two weeks—because borrowers can’t afford to repay the initial loan.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Taking out a payday loan makes a person more likely to lose their bank account, rack up overdraft fees, and file for bankruptcy,” said Calhoun. “With today’s action, the politically appointed leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is actively facilitating harm to consumers at a time of crisis and uncertainty.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) <a href="https://ourfinancialsecurity.org/2020/07/news-release-rollback-of-payday-protections-enables-predator-profiteering-amid-health-crisis/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">urged</a> Congress to pass legislation capping interest rates nationwide to stop payday lenders from taking advantage of the CFPB’s new rule.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“With regulators throwing open the doors to predatory lender, Congress must step in to prevent profiteering and stop payday and car-title lenders from burying people in high-interest debt,” AFR senior policy counsel Linda Jun said in a statement. “Predatory lenders will do nothing but prolong the human misery stemming from this crisis.”</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-payday-lenders-spent-1-million-at-a-trump-resort-and-cashed-in"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-payday-lenders-spent-1-million-at-a-trump-resort-and-cashed-in</font></a></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.0" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In mid-March, the payday lending industry held its annual convention at the Trump National Doral hotel outside Miami. Payday lenders offer loans on the order of a few hundred dollars, typically to low-income borrowers, who have to pay them back in a matter of weeks. The industry has long been reviled by critics for charging stratospheric interest rates — typically 400% on an annual basis — that leave customers trapped in cycles of debt.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The industry had felt under siege during the Obama administration, as the federal government moved to clamp down. <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-finds-four-out-of-five-payday-loans-are-rolled-over-or-renewed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">A government study</a> found that a majority of payday loans are made to people who pay more in interest and fees than they initially borrow. <a href="https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/2464998?hl=en" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Google</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Facebook</a> refuse to take the industry’s ads.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the edge of the Doral’s grounds, as the payday convention began, a group of ministers held a protest “pray-in,” denouncing the lenders for having a “feast” while their borrowers “suffer and starve.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But inside the hotel, in a wood-paneled bar under golden chandeliers, the mood was celebratory. Payday lenders, many dressed in golf shirts and khakis, enjoyed an open bar and mingled over bites of steak and coconut shrimp.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.4" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They had plenty to be elated about. A month earlier, Kathleen Kraninger, who had just finished her second month as director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, had delivered what the lenders consider an epochal victory: Kraninger <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-releases-notices-proposed-rulemaking-payday-lending/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">announced a proposal</a> to gut <a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201710_cfpb_final-rule_payday-loans-rule.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">a crucial rule</a> that had been passed under her Obama-era predecessor.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.4" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Payday lenders viewed that rule as a potential death sentence for many in their industry. It would require payday lenders and others to make sure borrowers could afford to pay back their loans while also covering basic living expenses. Banks and mortgage lenders view such a step as a basic prerequisite. But the notion struck terror in the payday lenders. Their business model relies on customers — 12 million Americans take out payday loans every year, according to Pew Charitable Trusts — getting stuck in a long-term cycle of debt, experts say. A <a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201304_cfpb_payday-dap-whitepaper.pdf" style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">CFPB study</a> found that three out of four payday loans go to borrowers who take out 10 or more loans a year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" /><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.0" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
This year was the second in a row that the CFSA held its convention at the Doral. In the eight years before 2018 (the extent for which records could be found), the organization never held an event at a Trump property.Now, the industry was taking credit for the CFPB’s retreat. As salespeople, executives and vendors picked up lanyards and programs at the registration desk by the Doral’s lobby, they saw a message on the first page of the program from Dennis Shaul, CEO of the industry’s trade group, the Community Financial Services Association of America, which was hosting the convention. “We should not forget that we have had some good fortune through recent regulatory and legal developments,” Shaul wrote. “These events did not occur by accident, but rather are due in large part to the unity and participation of CFSA members and a commitment to fight back against regulatory overreach by the CFPB.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Asked whether the choice of venue had anything to do with the fact that its owner is president of the United States and the man who appointed Kraninger as his organization’s chief regulator, Shaul assured ProPublica and WNYC that the answer was no. “We returned because the venue is popular with our members and meets our needs,” he said in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6128988-CFSA-Statement-2019-05-31.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">written statement</a>. The statement noted that the CFSA held its first annual convention at the Doral hotel more than 16 years ago. Trump didn’t own the property at the time.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CFSA and its members have poured a total of about $1 million into the Trump Organization’s coffers through the two annual conferences, according to detailed estimates prepared by a corporate event planner in Miami and an executive at a competing hotel that books similar events. Those estimates are consistent with the CFSA’s <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/522156601/201843049349301624/IRS990" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(26, 162, 230); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">most recent available tax filing</a>, which reveals that it spent $644,656 on its annual conference the year before the first gathering at the Trump property. (The Doral and the CFSA declined to comment.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" /><figure data-pp-id="6" data-pp-blocktype="image" class="image large left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.625rem 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 808.125px; float: none; clear: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-family: " tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a way of keeping themselves on the list, reminding the president and the people close to him that they are among those who are generous to him with the profits that they earn from a business that’s in severe danger of regulation unless the Trump administration acts,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of consumer group Americans for Financial Reform.</font></span></figure><p /><p /><p /><p /><p /><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The money the CFSA spent at the Doral is only part of the ante to lobby during the Trump administration. The payday lenders also did a bevy of things that interest groups have always done: They contributed to the president’s inauguration and earned face time with the president after donating to a Trump ally.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it’s the payment to the president’s business that is a stark reminder that the Trump administration is like none before it. If the industry had written a $1 million check directly to the president’s campaign, both the CFSA and campaign could have faced fines or even criminal charges — and Trump couldn’t have used the money to enrich himself. But paying $1 million directly to the president’s business? That’s perfectly legal.</font></p><hr style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; margin: 2em 4em; height: 1px; background: rgb(216, 214, 211); outline: none;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" /><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The inauguration of Donald Trump was a watershed for the payday lending industry. It had been feeling beleaguered since the launch of the CFPB in 2011. For the first time, the industry had come under federal supervision. Payday lending companies were suddenly subject to exams conducted by the bureau’s supervision division, which could, and sometimes did, lead to enforcement cases.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the bureau was created, payday lenders had been overseen mostly by state authorities. That left a patchwork: 15 states in which payday loans were banned outright, a handful of states with strong enforcement — and large swaths of the country in which payday lending was mostly unregulated.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, almost as suddenly as an aggressive CFPB emerged, the Trump administration arrived with an agenda of undoing regulations. “There was a resurgence of hope in the industry, which seems to be justified, at this point,” said Jeremy Rosenblum, a partner at law firm Ballard Spahr, who represents payday lenders. Rosenblum spoke to ProPublica and WNYC in a conference room at the Doral — filled with notepads, pens and little bowls of candy marked with the Trump name and family crest — where he had just led a session on compliance with federal and state laws. “There was a profound sense of relief, or hope, for the first time.” (Ballard Spahr occasionally represents ProPublica in legal matters.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Mick Mulvaney, who Trump appointed as interim chief of the CFPB in 2017, the industry got exactly the kind of person it had hoped for. As a congressman, Mulvaney had famously derided the agency as a “sad, sick” joke.</b></font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If anything, that phrase undersold Mulvaney’s attempts to hamstring the agency as its chief. He froze new investigations, dropped enforcement actions en masse, requested a budget of $0 and seemed to mock the agency by attempting to officially re-order the words in the organization’s name.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mick Mulvaney served as interim chief of the CFPB from November 2017 through 2018. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Mulvaney’s rhetoric sometimes exceeded his impact. His budget request was ignored, for example; the CFPB’s name change was only fleeting. And besides, Mulvaney was always a part-timer, fitting in a few days a week at the CFPB while also heading the Office of Management and Budget, and then moving to the White House as acting chief of staff.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s Mulvaney’s successor, Kraninger, whom the financial industry is now counting on — and the early signs suggest she’ll deliver. In addition to easing rules on payday lenders, she has continued Mulvaney’s policy of ending supervisory exams on outfits that specialize in lending to the members of the military, claiming that the CFPB can do so only if Congress passes a new law granting those powers (which isn’t likely to happen anytime soon). She has also proposed a new regulation that will allow debt collectors to text and email debtors an unlimited number of times as long as there’s an option to unsubscribe.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enforcement activity at the bureau has plunged under Trump. The amount of monetary relief going to consumers has fallen from $43 million per week under Richard Cordray, the director appointed by Barack Obama, to $6.4 million per week under Mulvaney and is now $464,039, according to an updated analysis conducted by the Consumer Federation of America’s Christopher Peterson, a former special adviser to the bureau.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kathleen Kraninger testifies during her confirmation hearing in July 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger’s disposition seems almost the inverse of Mulvaney’s. If he’s the self-styled “right wing nutjob” willing to blow up the institution and everything near it, Kraninger offers positive rhetoric — she says she wants to “empower” consumers — and comes across as an amiable technocrat. At 44, she’s a former political science major — with degrees from Marquette University and Georgetown Law School — and has spent her career in the federal bureaucracy, with a series of jobs in the Transportation and Homeland Security departments and finally in OMB, where she worked under Mulvaney. (In an interview with her college alumni association, she hailed her Jesuit education and cited Pope Francis as her “dream dinner guest.”) In her previous jobs, Kraninger had extensive budgeting experience, but none in consumer finance. The CFPB declined multiple requests to make Kraninger available for an interview and directed ProPublica and WNYC to her public comments and speeches.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger is new to public testimony, but she already seems to have developed the politician’s skill of refusing to answer difficult questions. At a hearing in March just weeks before the Doral conference, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter repeatedly asked Kraninger to calculate the annual percentage rate on a hypothetical $200 two-week payday loan that costs $10 per $100 borrowed plus a $20 fee. The exchange went viral on Twitter. In a bit of congressional theater, Porter even had an aide deliver a calculator to Kraninger’s side to help her. But Kraninger would not engage. She emphasized that she wanted to conduct a policy discussion rather than a “math exercise.” The answer, by the way: That’s a 521% APR.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A while later, the session recessed and Kraninger and a handful of her aides repaired to the women’s room. A ProPublica reporter was there, too. The group lingered, seeming to relish what they considered a triumph in the hearing room. “I stole that calculator, Kathy,” one of the aides said. “It’s ours! It’s ours now!” Kraninger and her team laughed.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Triple-digit interest rates are no laughing matter for those who take out payday loans. A sum as little as $100, combined with such rates, can lead a borrower into long-term financial dependency.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s what happened to Maria Dichter. Now 73, retired from the insurance industry and living in Palm Beach County, Florida, Dichter first took out a payday loan in 2011. Both she and her husband had gotten knee replacements, and he was about to get a pacemaker. She needed $100 to cover the co-pay on their medication. As is required, Dichter brought identification and her Social Security number and gave the lender a postdated check to pay what she owed. (All of this is standard for payday loans; borrowers either postdate a check or grant the lender access to their bank account.) What nobody asked her to do was show that she had the means to repay the loan. Dichter got the $100 the same day.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The relief was only temporary. Dichter soon needed to pay for more doctors’ appointments and prescriptions. She went back and got a new loan for $300 to cover the first one and provide some more cash. A few months later, she paid that off with a new $500 loan.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dichter collects a Social Security check each month, but she has never been able to catch up. For almost eight years now, she has renewed her $500 loan every month. Each time she is charged $54 in fees and interest. That means Dichter has paid about $5,000 in interest and fees since 2011 on what is effectively one loan for $500.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, Dichter said, she is “trapped.” She and her husband subsist on eggs and Special K cereal. “Now I’m worried,” Dichter said, “because if that pacemaker goes and he can’t replace the battery, he’s dead.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Payday loans are marketed as a quick fix for people who are facing a financial emergency like a broken-down car or an unexpected medical bill. But studies show that most borrowers use the loans to cover everyday expenses. “We have a lot of clients who come regularly,” said Marco (he asked us to use only his first name), a clerk at one of Advance America’s 1,900 stores, this one in a suburban strip mall not far from the Doral hotel. “We have customers that come two times every month. We’ve had them consecutively for three years.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These types of lenders rely on repeat borrowers. “The average store only has 500 unique customers a year, but they have the overhead of a conventional retail store,” said Alex Horowitz, a senior research officer at Pew Charitable Trusts, who has spent years studying payday lending. “If people just used one or two loans, then lenders wouldn’t be profitable.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read More</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Whack-a-Mole: How Payday Lenders Bounce Back When States Crack Down</b></font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In state after state that has tried to ban payday and similar loans, the industry has found ways to continue to peddle them.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was years of stories like Dichter’s that led the CFPB to draft a rule that would require that lenders ascertain the borrower’s ability to repay their loans. “We determined that these loans were very problematic for a large number of consumers who got stuck in what was supposed to be a short-term loan,” said Cordray, the first director of the CFPB, in an interview with ProPublica and WNYC. Finishing the ability-to-pay rule was one of the reasons he stayed on even after the Trump administration began. (Cordray left in November 2017 for what became an unsuccessful run for governor of Ohio.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ability-to-pay rule was announced in October 2017. The industry erupted in outrage. Here’s how CFSA’s chief, Shaul, described it in his statement to us: “The CFPB’s original rule, as written by unelected Washington bureaucrats, was motivated by a deeply paternalistic view that small-dollar loan customers cannot be trusted with the freedom to make their own financial decisions. The original rule stood to remove access to legal, licensed small-dollar loans for millions of Americans.” The statement cited an analysis that “found that the rule would push a staggering 82 percent of small storefront lenders to close.” The CFPB estimated that payday and auto title lenders — the latter allow people to borrow for short periods at ultra-high annual rates using their cars as collateral — would lose around $7.5 billion as a result of the rule.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The industry fought back. The charge was led by Advance America, the biggest brick-and-mortar payday lender in the United States. Its CEO until December, Patrick O’Shaughnessy, was the chairman of the CFSA’s board of directors and head of its federal affairs committee. The company had already been wooing the administration, starting with a $250,000 donation to the Trump inaugural committee. (Advance America contributes to both Democratic and Republican candidates, according to spokesperson Jamie Fulmer. He points out that, at the time of the $250,000 donation, the CFPB was still headed by Cordray, the Obama appointee.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Payday and auto title lenders collectively donated $1.3 million to the inauguration. Rod and Leslie Aycox from Select Management Resources, a Georgia-based title lending company, attended the Chairman’s Global Dinner, an exclusive inauguration week event organized by Tom Barrack, the inaugural chairman, according to documents obtained by “Trump, Inc.” President-elect Trump spoke at the dinner.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In October 2017, Rod Aycox and O’Shaughnessy met with Trump when he traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, to speak at a fundraiser for the state’s governor, Henry McMaster. They were among 30 people who were invited to discuss economic development after donating to the campaign, according to the The Post and Courier. (“This event was only about 20 minutes long,” said the spokesperson for O’Shaughnessy’s company, and the group was large. “Any interaction with the President would have been brief.” The Aycoxes did not respond to requests for comment.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2017, the CFSA spent $4.3 million advocating for its agenda at the federal and state level, according to its IRS filing. That included developing “strategies and policies,” providing a “link between the industry and regulatory decision makers” and efforts to “educate various state policy makers” and “support legislative efforts which are beneficial to the industry and the public.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ability-to-pay rule technically went into effect in January 2018, but the more meaningful date was August 2019. That’s when payday lenders could be penalized if they hadn’t implemented key parts of the rule.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Payday lenders looked to Mulvaney for help. He had historically been sympathetic to the industry and open to lobbyists who contribute money. (Jaws dropped in Washington, not about Mulvaney’s practices in this regard, but about his candor. “We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” he told bankers in 2018. “If you were a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read More</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The CFPB’s Declaration of Dependence</b></font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Born as a fiercely independent agency meant to protect citizens, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has quickly been subsumed into the Trump administration. Banks, student-loan agencies and payday lenders are the winners.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Mulvaney couldn’t overturn the ability-to-pay rule. Since it had been finalized, he didn’t have the legal authority to reverse it on his own. Mulvaney announced that the bureau would begin reconsidering the rule, a complicated and potentially lengthy process. The CFPB, under Cordray, had spent five years researching and preparing it.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, the payday lenders turned to Congress. Under the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers can nix federal rules during their first 60 days in effect. In the House, a bipartisan group of representatives filed a joint resolution to abolish the ability-to-pay rule. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., led the charge in the Senate. But supporters couldn’t muster a decisive vote in time, in part because opposition to payday lenders crosses party lines.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By April 2018, the CFSA members were growing impatient. But the Trump administration was willing to listen. The CFSA’s Shaul was granted access to a top Mulvaney lieutenant, according to “Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within” in The New York Times Magazine, which offers a detailed description of the behind-the scenes maneuvering. Shaul told the lieutenant that the CFSA had been preparing to sue the CFPB to stop the ability-to-pay rule “but now believed that it would be better to work with the bureau to write a new one.” Cautious about appearing to coordinate with industry, according to the article, the CFPB was non-committal.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Days later, the CFSA sued the bureau. The organization’s lawyers argued in court filings that the bureau’s rules “defied common sense and basic economic analysis.” The suit claimed the bureau was unconstitutional and lacked the authority to impose rules.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A month later, Mulvaney took a rare step, at least, for most administrations: He sided with the plaintiffs suing his agency. Mulvaney filed a joint motion asking the judge to delay the ability-to-pay rule until the lawsuit is resolved.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By February of this year, Kraninger had taken charge of the CFPB and proposed to rescind the ability-to-pay rule. Her official announcement asserted that there was “insufficient evidence and legal support” for the rule and expressed concern that it “would reduce access to credit and competition.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger’s announcement sparked euphoria in the industry. One industry blog proclaimed, “It’s party time, baby!” with a GIF of President Trump bobbing his head.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger’s decision made the lawsuit largely moot. But the suit, which has been stayed, has still served a purpose: This spring, a federal judge agreed to freeze another provision of the regulation, one that limits the number of times a lender can debit a borrower’s bank account, until the fate of the overall rule is determined.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the wrangling over the federal regulation plays out, payday lenders have continued to lobby statehouses across the country. For example, a company called Amscot pushed for a new state law in Florida last year. Amscot courted African American pastors and leaders located in the districts of dozens of Democratic lawmakers and chartered private jets to fly them to Florida’s capital to testify, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The lawmakers subsequently passed legislation creating a new type of payday loan, one that can be paid in installments, that lets consumers borrow a maximum $1,000 loan versus the $500 maximum for regular payday loans. Amscot CEO Ian MacKechnie asserts that the new loans reduce fees (consumer advocates disagree). He added, in an email to ProPublica and WNYC: “We have always worked with leaders in the communities that we serve: both to understand the experiences of their constituents with regard to financial products; and to be a resource to make sure everyone understands the law and consumer protections. Educated consumers are in everyone’s interest.” For their part, the leaders denied that Amscot’s contributions affected their opinions. As one of them told the Tampa Bay Times, the company is a “great community partner.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger spent her first three months in office embarking on a “listening tour.” She traveled the country and met with more than 400 consumer groups, government officials and financial institutions. Finally, in mid-April, she gave her first public speech at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The CFPB billed it as the moment she would lay out her vision for the agency.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger said she hoped to use the CFPB’s enforcement powers “less often.” She alluded to a report by the Federal Reserve that 40% of Americans would not be able to cover an emergency expense of $400. Her suggestion for addressing that: educational videos and a booklet. “To promote effective approaches to savings and particularly emergency savings,” Kraninger explained, “the Bureau recently launched our Start Small, Save Up initiative. It offers tips, tools and information to help consumers build a basic savings cushion and develop a savings habit. Later this year, we will be launching a savings ‘boot camp,’ a series of videos, and a very readable, informative booklet that serves as a roadmap to a savings plan.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Having laid out what sounded like a plan to hand out self-help brochures at an agency invented to pursue predatory financial institutions, she then said, “Let me be clear, however, the ultimate goal for the bureau is not to produce booklets and great content on our website. The ultimate goal is to move the needle on the number of Americans in this country who can cover a financial shock, like a $400 emergency.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back at the Doral the month before her speech, $400 might not have seemed like much of an emergency to the payday lenders. Some attendees seemed most upset by a torrential downpour on the second day that caused the cancellation of the conference’s golf tournament.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inside the Donald J. Trump Ballroom, the conference buzzed with activity. The Bush-era political adviser Karl Rove was the celebrity speaker after the breakfast buffet. And the practical sessions continued apace. One was called “The Power of the Pen.” It was aimed at helping attendees submit comments on the ability-to-pay rule to the government. It was clearly a matter of importance to the CFSA. In his statement to ProPublica and WNYC, Shaul noted that “more than one million customers submitted comments opposing the CFPB’s original small-dollar loan rule — hundreds of thousands of whom sent handwritten letters telling personal stories of how small-dollar loans helped them and their families.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A couple of months after the Doral conference, Allied Progress, a consumer advocacy group, analyzed the new round of comments that were submitted to the CFPB in response to Kraninger’s plans. In one sample of 26,000 comments, the group discovered that 27% of the statements submitted by purportedly independent individuals contained duplicative passages, all of which supported the industry’s position. For example, Allied Progress reported that 221 of the comments stated that “I have a long commute to work and it’s better for me financially to borrow from Cash Connection so that I can still make it to work than to not take care of my car and lose my job because of absences.” There were 201 asserting that “I now take care of my parents and my children” and I “want to be able to enjoy life and not feel burdened by the additional expenses that are piling up.” Allied Progress said it doesn’t know “if these are fake people, fake stories, or form letters intentionally designed to read as personal anecdotes.” (Cash Connection couldn’t be reached for comment.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.3" tiempos="tiempos" text="text" georgia="Georgia" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Taking account of public comments is the final task before Kraninger officially determines whether to put the ability-to-pay rule to death. Whatever she decides, it’s a likely bet that decision will be challenged in court, the CFSA will weigh in and the payday lenders will still be talking about it at next year’s annual conference. A spokesperson for the CFSA declined to say whether the event will be held at a Trump hotel.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; font-family: Georgia, Times, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" em="em" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger's decision to distance herself from Mulvaney, her former boss at the Office of Management and Budget who was just named acting White House chief of staff, came just a week after she was sworn in to lead the bureau.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; font-family: Georgia, Times, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" em="em" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mulvaney, who was installed by President Donald Trump as acting director of the bureau in November 2017,</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/is-kathy-kraninger-qualified-to-run-the-cfpb/">https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/is-kathy-kraninger-qualified-to-run-the-cfpb/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee narrowly approved Kathy Kraninger, currently an associate director at the White House Office of Management and Budget, to be the next head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/republican-senate-would-gut-elizabeth-warren-consumer-protection-bureau/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Wall Street watchdog agency</a> established after the 2008 financial crisis to keep tabs on big banks.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The vote to approve Kraninger’s contentious nomination fell on party lines: The committee’s 13 Republicans voted for her, while all 12 Democrats opposed her nomination. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They had concerns with her lack of experience in consumer finance and banking, and her continued equivocation over her role in overseeing the two federal agencies—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice—that implemented the administration’s now-discontinued family separation policy.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At Kraninger’s July <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/elizabeth-warren-tore-into-trumps-consumer-watchdog-nominee-over-family-separations/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">confirmation hearing</a>, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—the original architect of the CFPB, and one of the agency’s major champions in Congress—and other Democratic lawmakers peppered Kraninger with questions about her alleged involvement in family separations. They wanted to know what type of advice she provided for the policy’s roll out during her participation in high-level meetings with officials.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger gave evasive answers, often repeating that she had no role in “setting” the administration’s family separations policy; Attorney General Jeff Sessions crafted the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to separations at the border. But she also refused to elaborate on any involvement she may have had in the development or implementation of the widely-condemned policy. Her vague statements came after weeks of effort by Sens. Warren and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to get clear answers from Kraninger. In June, the pair sent <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/06/elizabeth-warren-sherrod-brown-kathy-kraninger-cfpb-family-separation/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">a joint letter</a> asking OMB and Kraninger asking for documentation detailing her role in the “cruel” administration policy. But given Kraninger’s high-level position at OMB overseeing key homeland security agencies, it’s <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/kathy-kraninger-omb-cfpb-family-separation-elizabeth-warren/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">quite likely</a> she had significant involvement.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These are innocent children who might be scarred forever because of this policy. It’s fundamentally immoral—and you, you, were a part of it, Ms. Kraninger,” Sen. Warren <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/elizabeth-warren-tore-into-trumps-consumer-watchdog-nominee-over-family-separations/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">said</a> at last month’s hearing. “That’s a <span id="0.6131863639785744" class="currentHitHighlight" style="box-sizing: inherit;">moral</span> <span id="0.9279393426385929" class="highlight" style="box-sizing: inherit;">stain</span> that will follow you for the rest of your life. And if the Senate votes to give you a big promotion, then it is a stain on the senators who do so.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
“Ms. Kraninger’s purported management experience and ability is the sole basis for her nomination,” noted the report. “Her management failures in these areas undercut any case for her nomination to run a major federal agency.</b>”Senators also questioned Kraninger’s lack of experience in the world of consumer finance, should she be given responsibility for regulating the agency that serves as a check on the financial industry. The White House has argued that Kraninger’s management experience in government and homeland security are sufficient qualifications for her to head the CFPB, a line of reasoning that Warren questioned last month as well.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> She again pointed to family separations and also to Kraninger’s role overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its botched response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Her office issued a <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018.7.18%20Kraninger%20Record%20Of%20Failure.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">staff report</a> outlining the budgeting problems and planning oversights that, under Kraninger’s watch, led to the “humanitarian catastrophe.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But on Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee chairman <b>Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) expressed confidence</b> in Kraninger’s management abilities. He told the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-kraninger-vote-20180823-story.html#" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Los Angeles Times</em></a> that “her depth and diversity of public service experience” gave him “confidence she is well prepared to lead the bureau.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger’s nomination will now go before the full Senate. If confirmed, she’ll replace her current OMB boss, Mick Mulvaney, and would serve a five-year term. For the last year, Mulvaney has been serving as acting director of the CFPB while also doing his job as OMB director. A <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/while-you-were-shopping-trump-set-off-a-civil-war-at-a-consumer-protection-agency/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">longtime foe</a> of the CFPB—as a congressman, Mulvaney cosponsored a bill that proposed shuttering the agency entirely—he’s implemented a number of reforms aimed at diminishing the CFPB’s power. These include <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/06/cfpb-advisory-boards-fired/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">dismissing advisory boards</a>, relaxing regulations on predatory lenders, spending down the agency’s reserves, and even changing the agency’s name. Kraninger is widely expected to carry on this deregulatory agenda.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During last month’s confirmation hearing, Kraninger agreed with the assertion Mulvaney has often made that the CFPB’s authority needs to be reined in, because the bureau has too much independence from Congress and the president. “I’m very open to changes in that structure that will make the agency more accountable and transparent,” Kraninger said.  </font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/20/headlines/trumps_nominee_to_head_consumer_watchdog_grilled_in_senate_hearing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Capitol Hill, Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee grilled <b>Kathy Kraninger, President Trump’s nominee to head the beleaguered Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—an agency opposed by Republicans</b> which has seen its operations severely curtailed under the Trump administration. This is North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp questioning Kraninger.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Sen. Heidi Heitkamp</strong>: “Have you ever worked at a bank or a credit union?”</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Kathy Kraninger</strong>: “Senator, I have not.”</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Sen. Heidi Heitkamp</strong>: “OK.”</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Kathy Kraninger</strong>: “And like many other”—</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Sen. Heidi Heitkamp</strong>: “Have you ever had oversight or regulated a bank or a credit union?”</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Kathy Kraninger</strong>: “No, Senator, I have not,<b> like many other nominees.”</b></font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Sen. Heidi Heitkamp</strong>: “OK. Have you ever been responsible for oversight or leadership in supervising payday lenders?”</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Kathy Kraninger</strong>: “No, Senator, I have not.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kraninger is a senior official at the White House Office of Management and Budget who’s proposed cutting nearly $150 million—or about a quarter—from the CFPB’s budget. She assisted the Trump administration’s bungled response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and helped craft the “zero tolerance” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border that’s seen thousands of immigrant children separated from their parents. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren.</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Sen. Elizabeth Warren</strong>: “You see the videos of some of these children being returned to their parents after long separations. They’re dazed. They’re unsmiling. They’re dirty. It’s like the life has been sucked out of them. These are innocent children who may be scarred forever by this policy. It is fundamentally immoral, and you—you—were part of it, Ms. Kraninger. It is a moral stain that will follow you for the rest of your life.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senator Warren’s comments came as federal officials reported Thursday that just 364 of some 2,500 families with children aged 5 and older have been brought back together, less than a week before a court-ordered deadline to reunite children and parents. We’ll have more on the emotional and psychological impact of the Trump administration’s immigration policies later in the broadcast.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-kraninger-experience-20180618-story.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p data-page="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nominees for top federal financial regulators usually have worked in high-level government or private-sector jobs, and President Trump had been following that traditional playbook. Until his latest pick.</font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His choice for comptroller of the currency was chief executive of Pasadena's OneWest Bank; the selection for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman had been executive vice president of Fifth Third Bank and chief counsel for the Senate Banking Committee; and the nominee to head the Federal Reserve had served on the central bank’s board since 2012 after having been a top Treasury official and a partner at a high-powered asset-management firm.</font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But now for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — arguably the single-most-powerful financial regulator in Washington — Trump has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-nominee-kathy-kraninger-20180616-story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px;">tapped </a>a little-known White House aide with no apparent relevant experience in finance, banking regulation or consumer protection.</font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The announcement this weekend that Kathy Kraninger, associate director for general government at the Office of Management and Budget, would be Trump’s nominee to head the consumer bureau came as a surprise.</font></p></div></div><div class="desktop-nativo mobile-yieldmo inline-ad " data-inline-ad-count="2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 16px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);"><span class="hidden-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="wrapper clearfix full pb-feature pb-layout-item pb-f-ads-nativo" data-pb-name="Nativo Ad" data-pb-curated="curated" id="f0s4a7sS9RlmYq" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="hidden-mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div id="8791" data-nativo-id-desktop="1069557" class="desktop-nativo-ad trb_ar_nt" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></div></div></span></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the more people have examined her resume, the greater the surprise.<b> Kraninger’s background largely has been in budget and homeland security in Congress and the executive branch.</b></font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The nomination has “led nearly every lobbying and research office in Washington to search frantically for information on Kraninger’s background, which despite her good credentials as a budget and national security expert is pretty sparse,” said a report Monday from strategic research firm Capital Alpha Partners.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consumer advocates were not impressed.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Kraninger … has neither experience as a regulator nor expertise in consumer financial issues,” said Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. “The nation’s leading consumer financial regulator is not an entry-level job.”</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and others in her party have questioned Kraninger’s qualifications. There also has been some criticism from the right.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“She has no record on the issues and no experience with this policy area,” said J.W. Verret, an assistant professor at <b>George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School </b>and an expert on financial regulation.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I’m shocked that at the last minute they pulled out this unqualified candidate,” said Verret, who is organizing opposition to the nomination by circulating a letter opposing it to conservative and consumer credit legal scholars.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger’s lack of experience probably will make her confirmation difficult in the narrowly divided Senate.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the White House has defended the pick.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger “will bring a fresh perspective and much-needed management experience” to the consumer bureau, said White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the nomination seems designed to ensure that Mick Mulvaney, who has been serving as the bureau’s acting director since November, can <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-mulvaney-mcwatters-20180522-story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px;">stay on the job</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with brokerage and investment bank Cowen & Co., wrote in a research note Monday.</span></font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Under a time limit in the law by which he was appointed in November, Mulvaney would have been required to leave the consumer bureau job Friday if the White House hadn’t nominated someone to be the permanent director.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kraninger’s nomination triggers a provision in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act that allows Mulvaney, who also is OMB director, to serve until the Senate confirms or rejects the pick. That process could take months.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We see the nomination of Kathy Kraninger as a way to keep OMB Director Mick Mulvaney in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for years to come without the need to ever get someone confirmed,” Seiberg wrote.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mulvaney has been praised by Republicans for significantly scaling back the activities of the consumer bureau, which was created in the aftermath of the financial crisis to try to prevent a repeat by cracking down on predatory lending and other abuses.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seiberg noted that Kraninger had the advantage of being able to remain in her White House job while the Senate considers the nomination, posing less risk to her if she ultimately is rejected.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A private-sector nominee, such as a financial industry executive, normally would have to step down once nominated because of potential conflicts of interest with work related to the consumer bureau’s industry oversight.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since joining the Office of Management and Budget in March 2017, Kraninger has overseen $250 billion in funding for seven cabinet departments and 30 agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the White House said.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before that, she worked as the clerk for the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security and served as deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, according to her LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-kraninger-aa8a116/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px;">page </a>and a speaker <a href="http://events.afcea.org/GlobalID17/Public/SpeakerDetails.aspx?FromPage=Sessions.aspx&ContactID=112350" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px;">bio </a>for a 2017 Homeland Security conference.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Financial industry groups congratulated Kraninger on her nomination. And</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and an outspoken critic of the bureau, said Monday he supported the nomination.</span></font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I am especially pleased that President Trump nominated an individual with management and budget experience — two qualities that are desperately needed at an agency which has been plagued with cost overruns and unnecessary spending and does not have a full-time and an independent inspector general,” Hensarling said.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bureau, which gets its funding from the Federal Reserve, is overseen by the central bank’s inspector general.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Russ Vought, OMB’s deputy director, said Kraninger was “a fantastic choice”</b> who would be missed at the White House.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Her work ethic and ability to get things done are comparable to none, and her subject matter expertise on a diverse range of issues, from financial services to homeland security and regulatory reform, will be extremely hard to replace,” he said.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) declined to comment on the nomination Monday. Verret said he spoke to some aides for Republicans on the committee and they expressed “immediate and strong skepticism” about the nomination.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p data-page="2" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Verret compared the choice of Kraninger to the nomination of Harriet Miers in 2005 to the Supreme Court. Miers was White House counsel to President George W. Bush, but she <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2005/oct/28/nation/na-miers28" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px;">withdrew </a>after her selection drew strong opposition from conservatives, partly because of questions about her qualifications for the job.</font></font></p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="card collection-item card-border-bottom card-border-bottom-thick card-border-bottom-dark" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-width: 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 19px;"><div class=" card-content " style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; padding: 24px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraninger’s “experience is all in Homeland Security and budget. Those issues have zero application to the issues she’ll be d</font></font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>