logo
Trump's Shutdown Of Financial Watchdog Could Burden Military Families

Trump's Shutdown Of Financial Watchdog Could Burden Military Families

Yahoo03-06-2025

The Trump administration's destruction of a consumer watchdog agency will end up hurting veterans and active members of the armed forces who are vulnerable to predatory banking and credit practices, according to a new report from public-interest groups.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been investigating a growing number of complaints from veterans who say they were fleeced by banks and credit card companies in recent years. But the White House has tried to shut down the CFPB and defund it as the Trump administration pursues draconian cuts across the federal government.
Those who served or are serving their country face unique risks that make them 'targets for scams and inflated prices,' including higher rates on auto loans than the general population, the report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group found.
'America's servicemembers, veterans and their families have benefited tremendously from the work of the CFPB,' the authors write, noting the agency has processed 400,000 complaints from those groups since 2011. 'To protect those who serve, policymakers must protect the CFPB.'
Congress created the CFPB in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, tasking it with protecting consumers from abuses by banks, credit unions, payday lenders and mortgage servicers, among others. Part of the agency's responsibilities is enforcing the Military Lending Act, which includes specific protections for active-duty service members and their families, such as caps on lending rates.
Since 2011, the CFPB has recouped more than $350 million on behalf of servicemembers and veterans who said they were exploited, according to the report.
Mike Litt, one of the report's co-authors, said the idea of protecting those who served their country has been baked into the CFPB's mission. When someone files a complaint against a bank or other firm, the CFPB invites them to note whether they have ties to the military.
'Service members and all Americans could pay a price with the dismantling of the CFPB,' Litt, the consumer campaign director at U.S. PIRG, told HuffPost. 'In the case of the service member complaints, what we found is nearly 1 in 4 complaints resulted in some kind of relief, whether monetary or non-monetary,' like someone's credit report getting fixed.
Litt noted that the life circumstances of active-duty service members can make them more susceptible to predatory behavior. For instance, they tend to be young, they move a lot and they often have to manage their finances while abroad. Those between ages 18 and 24 are more likely to take out auto loans or credit cards than their civilian counterparts.
The CFPB said last year that the number of complaints it received from the military community in 2023 was nearly double the number it received in 2021. A frequent grievance from service members was not receiving a 6% interest rate on auto loans they took out before going on active duty, as they were entitled to under law.
Such complaints end up in the CFPB's public database, where Litt says the attention and risk of embarrassment often shames companies into fixing the problem. Their analysis found that 98.5% of service members' complaints received 'a timely response.'
'Because the database is public, companies have an incentive to at least respond,' he said.
Republican lawmakers have bashed the CFPB for years, but the agency has never been so imperiled as it is under Trump. In February, Trump's acting CFPB director, White House Budget Director Russell Vought, locked the agency's staff out of their headquarters and ordered them to stop all their work. Trump said at the time that the CFPB was 'very important to get rid of.'
A federal judge later blocked the administration's plan to lay off the vast majority of CFPB employees, but that case is under appeal. Meanwhile, the administration is moving ahead as if the courts will bless its plan to destroy the agency: Staffers recently received an email ordering them to clear out their offices in the coming days, Bloomberg Law reported.
Last month, the agency's leadership also rescinded dozens of CFPB policy documents, suggesting a major pullback on enforcement even if the courts thwart Trump's mass layoffs. The move was applauded by the American Bankers Association, a leading lobby for the banking industry.
Litt noted that the yanked documents included guidance for the public complaint database, which he said could be a 'first step' for shutting it down.
'The withdrawal of that guidance suggests that they are intending to or might hide the database from the public,' he said.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Republican attorneys general accuse California of excusing 'lawlessness'
Republican attorneys general accuse California of excusing 'lawlessness'

Fox News

time18 minutes ago

  • Fox News

Republican attorneys general accuse California of excusing 'lawlessness'

FIRST ON FOX: Nearly all Republican attorneys general blasted California's Democratic leaders on Tuesday in a joint statement, accusing them of condoning criminal behavior and saying they left President Donald Trump with no choice but to activate thousands of National Guard soldiers. "In California, we're seeing the results of leadership that excuses lawlessness and undermines law enforcement," 26 attorneys general wrote in the statement, first provided to Fox News Digital. "When local and state officials won't act, the federal government must." The attorneys general said Trump's decision to federalize the National Guard to address anti-immigration enforcement riots and protests that broke out in parts of Los Angeles County over the weekend was the "right response." Their remarks stand in direct contrast to those of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats across the country, who widely condemned Trump's decision to send the military into California as an unnecessary escalation. Newsom sued Trump over the move and accused the president of stripping California of its sovereignty. Presidents federalizing the National Guard, which is a state-based military force that falls under the dual control of governors and presidents, is rarely carried out without the consent of a governor. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, who led the attorneys general in issuing the statement, told Fox News Digital in a brief interview he felt Newsom was "gaslighting" the public by saying California's local and state law enforcement had the unrest under control and did not need Trump to intervene. "We all saw what was happening," Carr said. "There were federal law enforcement officers that were being attacked by mobs. And in fact, I read articles where local law enforcement were saying they were overwhelmed and they needed help. My question is, why in the world would he not accept the help of the federal government at a time where there was mob rule, where there was arson that was taking place, where assaults were occurring, instead of coddling the criminals that are doing this again?" Carr said those opposed to the Trump administration's immigration raids could "peacefully disagree with what the federal government is doing." Newsom, for his part, alleged that Trump exacerbated the riots, echoing a position some criminal justice advocates take that an immediate show of force in response to intensifying protests is an ineffective approach. In Newsom's lawsuit, attorneys wrote that Trump's decision was not only unwise but also an unlawful and "unprecedented usurpation of state authority and resources." Fox News Digital reached out to the California Attorney General's Office for comment.

Trump reverses Army base names in latest DEI purge
Trump reverses Army base names in latest DEI purge

Politico

time18 minutes ago

  • Politico

Trump reverses Army base names in latest DEI purge

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he plans to revert the names of seven major Army bases back to the Confederate generals for which they were originally named. 'We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee,' Trump said. 'We won a lot of battles out of those forts, it's no time to change.' Trump's announcement, during a speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, follows Biden-administration era alterations in 2023 that changed the installation names to honor new, non-Confederate individuals. Those included changing Fort Hood to Fort Cavazos, for the Army's first four-star Hispanic general. The Army previously redesignated Fort Liberty, previously known as Fort Bragg, to its original name, but honoring Private First Class Roland L. Bragg, a World War II hero instead of the Confederate general Braxton Bragg. The service also redesignated Fort Moore, after Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julia Compton Moore, for Fred G. Benning, who won the Distinguished Service Cross during World War I. The Army is taking the same approach for the bases tapped for renaming on Tuesday, finding award-winning soldiers with the same last names as the Confederate generals to name the bases after, according to a statement released by the service after the president's speech. The president gave no timeline for the name changes and it was not immediately clear whether the Army's bases would be renamed after Confederate generals or soldiers from different eras. One army official, granted anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak, said they were caught off guard by the rapid-fire developments, which could take months to Army did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment. Though the Trump administration insisted the redesignations were in-line with laws that prevent the Pentagon from naming bases after Confederate leaders or battles, Ty Seidule, a retired Army brigadier general who was the vice chair of the Congressional Naming Commission, which is tasked with relabeling bases and U.S. military assets, said that Trump's decision went against the spirit of the new rule enacted after the George Floyd protests. 'The bottom line is he's choosing surname over service,' said Seidule, who's now a visiting professor at Hamilton College. 'It is breaking the spirit of a law that was created by the will of the American people through their elected representatives.' Seidule said that the commission, which was made up of three Republicans, one Democrat and four retired flag officers, spent 20 months seeking input from the public and got 33,000 responses to change the names of Army bases and other installations and assets named after Confederates, including several U.S. Navy ships. But he said the decision still reflected that the Trump administration 'realizes that Confederates chose treason to preserve slavery, and they are unworthy of having bases named for them in America in 2025.' On Tuesday, Trump criticized Biden at several points during his speech, which was full of asides about immigration, transgender Americans and the spending bill currently being debated in Congress. His political comments in front of hundreds of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division led to a smattering of boos from the mostly uniformed audience when he criticized former President Joe Biden. Audience members also jeered when Trump mentioned California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom the president clashed with over protests in California that were sparked by the Trump administration's immigration raids. Presidents normally avoid giving political speeches to military personnel. 'Do you think this crowd would have showed up for Biden,' Trump said at one point in his remarks. 'I don't think so.' 'We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again,' Trump said, claiming parts of the city are under the control of international criminal gangs. The president has ordered 4,000 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to Los Angeles, though so far only about 300 guardsmen have entered the city. The Marines are positioned outside Los Angeles, where they're undergoing training on crowd control, said one defense official who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The move to rename Army bases comes just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moved to relabel a Navy vessel named after gay rights activist Harvey Milk as well as other ships named after civil rights leaders and women. Seidule, the retired Army brigadier general who served on the Biden-era naming commission, said that Trump's decision creates the risk that future administrations could take turns renaming the Army's bases. 'What happens if some other administration would name something after someone that one party thinks is just absolutely beyond the pale,' said Seidule. 'I think that this could absolutely be a tennis match.' Sam Skove contributed to this report.

Granholm: Democrats would ‘welcome' Musk ‘helping us out'
Granholm: Democrats would ‘welcome' Musk ‘helping us out'

The Hill

time19 minutes ago

  • The Hill

Granholm: Democrats would ‘welcome' Musk ‘helping us out'

Former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday that Democrats would 'welcome' tech billionaire Elon Musk 'helping us out' after an intense clash between Musk and President Trump last week. 'I think the Democrats would welcome him helping us out, politically, but — financially, etc.,' Granholm said at Politico's 2025 Energy Summit. 'But, maybe, maybe not, I don't know. I'm not running.' Last Thursday, a fight between Musk and Trump over the president's 'big, beautiful bill' earlier in the week escalated rapidly on Musk's X platform and Trump's Truth Social platform. The president said the tech billionaire 'just went CRAZY!' and threatened Musk's government contracts. Musk alleged that Trump had ties to convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein on X. The public spat followed the end of Musk's recent service in the Trump administration and an alliance with the president that appeared to start off strong. Musk endorsed Trump in July 2024 in the wake of Trump surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. Musk's administration service was marked by intense backlash from those on the left and Democrats over actions taken by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on the federal government. Trump's ex-personal attorney Michael Cohen on Saturday said that Trump isn't done with tech billionaire Elon Musk yet. 'They're going to really go after Elon Musk like nobody has seen, ever, in this country, because they can,' Cohen told MSNBC's Ali Velshi.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store