We’ve seen Republican Obstructionism at work against our federal judicial system, as Sen. Mitch McConnell and his cohorts have blocked many exceptionally-qualified, mainstream jurists from receiving an up-or-down vote in the Senate and many more have been needlessly delayed. But his recent comments regarding the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which still is without a director, unequivocally shows that his priority is to prevent President Obama from building a functioning government that serves the American people. Unfortunately, this means handicapping the CFPB – which was created to help protect Americans from the types of financial abuse by Wall Street that caused the Great Recession and is toothless without a director – just to score political points and curry favor from the financial industry.
Raw Story reports:
President Barack Obama has decided to nominate Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) instead of Elizabeth Warren, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doesn’t care. He says Republicans still plan to block the nomination.
“I would remind [President Obama] that Senate Republicans still aren’t interested approving anyone to the position until the president agrees to make this massive government bureaucracy more accountable and transparent to the American people,” McConnell announced on the Senate floor Monday.
By making the agency “more accountable and transparent,” Sen. McConnell and other Republicans mean replacing the director with a board of directors and making it easier for other agencies to overrule the CFPB’s actions – in other words, providing more opportunities for the financial industry to insulate itself from oversight and regulation.
It’s pretty easy to see how the Obstructionist agenda might not be in the best interest of the American people.