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| Richard Cordray, photo courtesy of Wikipedia. |
I received word this morning of Obama’s recent appointment of Richard Cordray as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in an email from Elizabeth Warren:
Virginia,
This is an important day. Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gets its first director -- and its full powers. President Obama gave Richard Cordray a recess appointment that Republicans cannot block.
For months, determined as ever to protect Wall Street and the big banks instead of you, Republicans stymied the consumer agency from doing its job. Republicans demanded changes that would weaken the agency and its ability to protect you, and they filibustered the nomination of Richard Cordray as its director.
The big banks were winning once again until today -- when President Obama gave Cordray a recess appointment!
This is a big deal for middle class families in Massachusetts and across our nation.
For more than a year, we've seen and heard reports exposing how some of America's largest financial institutions broke the law. Maybe that's why Wall Street continues to set new spending records hiring lobbyists to shift attention away from their wrongdoings.
As a result, those who broke our economic system haven't been subject to full scrutiny. But with Richard Cordray in place at the CFPB, we can start moving toward real accountability over the big banks.
The public is paying attention to this fight -- including thousands who signed our petition urging that Rich get this position.
We've worked hard together to get this far. We should celebrate -- and keep right on working. Let's show there's real momentum behind Cordray's leadership.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth Warren
Cordray as a comsumer watchdog seems unappropriate in light of last weeks PD article about how last year, Cordroy's office was in charge of making sure that companies that recieved ODOD (Ohio Department of Development) grants fullfilled the job creation part of their agreement and they failed miserably. His lack of watchdog skills cost Ohio Taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. See the article
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/12/nearly_half_of_companies_that.html#comments
It didn't get much press so I imagine Obama's staff didn't see this or I can't imagine they would have gone forward with Cordray. If you are not familiar with the article, here is how it related to Cordory and his watchdog ability.
Last year, Cordory's office was in charge of making sure companies who recieved ODOD rewards fulfilled the job creation requirements or else the state could clawback the money (taxpayer dollars) they received. Cordroy reported that 90% of companies fulfilled their end of the agreement. This year is came out that the number is only 52% and the reason it was so high in the previous year was that "Cordray’s analysis, however, was based on voluntary surveys that companies submitted to the attorney general’s office, according to a Lisa Hackley, a spokeswoman for DeWine. Only about 25 percent of the companies responded to the survey, Hackley said."
Was it that hard to slip one by our new watchdog and take tens of millions of taxpayer dollars they didn't deserve? How does Mr. Cordray find out if the companies lived up to their end of the bargain...he sent them a voluntary survey and politely asked them if they created the jobs they promised they would and he didn't audit the few responses he got. THIS IS A PERSON IN A WATCHDOG POSITION!!!
My question is why he would even have to ask the company anything? To see if companies created the jobs they promised, he could simply look at the tax rolls to see the number of OHIO employees and total ohio payroll each company had.
Do you think this is relavent to the conversation?
Well, anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed when Obama failed to appoint Elizabeth Warren as director of the CFPB, and I had never heard of Cordray before, but I'm willing to trust Elizabeth on this one. And she just may be able to do more for the middle class in the US Senate after she defeats Scott Brown in the Mass. race: http://elizabethwarren.com/