Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell ponders the Trump Administration's choice of someone with "zero experience in the complicated world of financial regulation or consumer protection" to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Considering consumer protection more broadly, she writes:
It’s bizarre. Whenever they get the chance, Republican officials seem intent on bleeding consumers dry. Or at least celebrating others’ bloodletting.
Such consumers might be 9/11 first responders and brain-injured National Football League players alleged to have been bilked out of millions of dollars from legal settlements. Or a student who took out thousands of dollars in loans for a degree that turned out to be worthless, from a for-profit school that went belly up. Or an elderly man who was abused at a nursing home but is legally barred from suing.
Those are all actual cases in which a consumer has gotten squeezed, or was blocked from seeking recourse in a dispute with a business. And just about every time, Republican officials have come down against the consumer.
The full op-ed is here.
