From Elizabeth Warren <[email protected]>
Subject My plan to lead Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee
Date January 15, 2025 12:14 AM
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Warren for Senate: [link removed]

Starting
this year, I have the honor of serving as the leading Democrat on the
Senate Banking Committee. My life’s work has focused on reducing the
obstacles families face to build a better future. That’s why I came to
Washington in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, started the CFPB, and
then became a senator. I want to thank this team and the people of
Massachusetts for sending me back to the Senate to continue this work in
this new role.

In an op-ed I wrote in the Wall Street Journal this morning, I laid out a
four-part plan on how the committee can work to rebuild the middle class,
advance our economic and national security, and fight corruption.

I talk about how we can approach lowering housing costs, putting an end to
corporate consolidation and price gouging, ensuring that our financial
system serves families, and preventing future failures from “too big to
fail” institutions.

[ [link removed] ]If the president-elect is as serious about helping the middle class as
he says he is, then we can actually work together to make this happen.
Please read my op-ed below, and if you support our vision of a government
that works to unrig the economy and make life more affordable for working
families, please pitch in
$28 or
anything you can to support our work.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

 

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Elizabeth Warren: If Trump Wants to Unrig the Economy, I’m In

The mission of the Democrats on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban
Affairs Committee is to deliver what Americans have asked for in election
after election: unrigging the economy to make life more affordable for
working families.

I’m ready to work with Chairman Tim Scott, Donald Trump and business
leaders whenever they support policies that rebuild the middle class,
advance our economic and national security, and fight the corruption of
those who seek to use government to enrich themselves. We have at least
four specific tasks ahead.

First, we must lower costs and improve access to financial services. Last
year housing costs reached the highest level in decades. Conservatives who
believe this is a supply problem are right. Liberals who believe price
fixing and corporate landlords are culprits are also right. Congress has
been asleep at the switch on both fronts.

Our committee should pursue serious federal investment to create
incentives for home construction, establish partnerships with local
communities to cut red tape, and take on Wall Street landlords that are
squeezing families out of local markets. The Federal Reserve, after
driving mortgage rates to their highest levels since 2008, should cut
rates further. The Trump administration can help by transferring or
selling unused federal property to local actors to increase supply. We
should avoid anything that risks raising housing prices, such as
privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a way that rewards Wall Street
while inflating the cost of borrowing.

We should continue President Biden’s popular fights against junk fees,
corporate consolidation and price gouging. Mr. Trump one-upped Democrats
by proposing to cap credit-card rates at 10%. I’ll work with Republicans
to make it happen. If the president-elect is serious about protecting
consumers, he should support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s
work to lower costs. Since 2011, the bureau has returned more than $20
billion to customers who were cheated by credit-card companies and
financial institutions, and it’s fighting to protect conservatives from
discrimination by banks. Outside corporate C-suites, it’s loved by
Americans of all political stripes.

Second, we must advance economic and national security. Our committee has
key responsibilities over export controls, sanctions, trade policy,
corporate transparency, domestic supply chains and other levers to support
our economic security at home and promote our values abroad. I’ll support
the Trump administration if it uses these tools responsibly. That includes
helping American industry grow and preventing terrorists from exploiting
our financial system—not doing favors for corporate lobbyists or countries
that don’t share our values.

Third, we must ensure that our financial system serves families and the
real economy. Community lenders provide the majority of loans to the small
businesses that power our economy, but these small lenders are getting
swallowed by too-big-to-fail banks. This consolidation stifles competition
and access to credit. Meanwhile, private-equity raiders continue to hollow
out businesses and communities by buying up everything from grocery stores
to hospitals—again killing competition.

Risk is building in the system. Too-big-to-fail banks are quietly taking
on riskier investments. The shadowy private credit market has loaded up on
highly leveraged loans. And after waves of catastrophic losses, the
insurance industry faces a reckoning that even climate-change deniers
can’t ignore. Without significant changes, another financial crash is
coming.

The committee must address these risks. We can pass the Recoup Act, which
would reduce incentives for risk-taking by clawing back compensation from
bank executives who got big paychecks while their banks failed. We can
build on the work JD Vance and I did in the Senate to hold bank regulators
accountable when their solution to bank failures is to arrange more
megabank mergers. And we can establish common-sense rules for artificial
intelligence, blockchain technology and fintech to promote stability and
ensure that innovation serves all consumers, investors and business—not
only billionaires and big banks, and certainly not terrorists.

And yes, we should simplify financial regulations. Republicans are right
that regulatory complexity can drive up costs and hurt smaller companies
that don’t have armies of lobbyists. Simpler structural rules such as
Glass-Steagall would eliminate a mountain of paperwork and end the need
for regulators to intrude into businesses. Clearer rules would create more
transparency and give Americans across the country simpler access to
public markets.

Finally, we must be vigilant against so-called reforms that make it easier
for Wall Street to rip off consumers or crash the financial system. Three
of the four largest bank failures in our history occurred in 2023. These
failures came in the wake of reforms that encouraged regulators to ease up
too much. Similarly, tariffs and sanctions are powerful tools that we can
use to protect consumers and our security, but they can also be exploited
to dole out corporate welfare to well-connected businessmen or protect
monopolies. Our job is to ask hard questions of companies, regulators and
officials who put their own interests ahead of the public’s.

When I was a kid, my daddy lost his job and our family teetered on the
edge of losing our home. My life’s work has focused on reducing the
obstacles families face to build a better future. That’s why I came to
Washington in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, started the CFPB and
became a senator. I’ll continue that work in my role on the Banking
Committee.







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