The Consumer Financial Protection Agency

By Rico K Setyo

The initial purpose of proposing to create an oversight group of consumer lending was to protect the average American consumer. The original bill was pushed by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a democrat from Massachusetts. He believes that this bill will be able to regulate how consumer focused financial products is administered and protect consumers from fraudulent activities.

However, many republicans have opposed Frank’s original proposal because of one aspect of the bill. In Frank’s original bill, he wanted the agency to be run by a single director, but the idea of giving one person an immense amount of power struck people with concerns. Joe L. Barton, a republican and Henry Waxman , a democrat wanted to amend the current proposed bill which “would replace that single director with a five-member bipartisan commission”.

The single directorship is not the only issue many people are arguing about. Many republicans are just arguing the fact that Frank and President Obama are proposing to create another agency to oversee consumer lending. Eric Cantor, a republican states that “increased government regulation isn’t always the answer… we need, perhaps, smart regulation, but more [isn’t always] the right solution.”

Many people are still proposing different changes to the current bill. As of now nothing has been finalized yet, the creation of a consumer financial protection agency might not be anytime soon since it still has a lot of work ahead of itself.

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