Industry spent $42 million to kill judicial loan modifications

Firedoglake posted this article showing the amount of money spent lobbying against consumer protection bills during the first quarter of 2009, including S. 61 and the Durbin amendment to the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act.  (These are the bills which would have lifted the ban on judicial loan modifications.)  Judicial loan modifications were rejected by the Senate, 45-51.

Since the $42 million total only represents the first qurter of ’09, and the Durbin amendment just died last week, the grand total spent fighting it likely exceeds $42 million.

Some of this total also went to opposing the other consumer friendly legislation such as the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, the reports don’t break down how much was spent on each issue.

Of particular note are the companies who spent big sums lobbying and also recieved huge chunks of taxpayer bailout money.  Bank of America, for example, spent $660,000 lobbying against consumers, and received over $50 billion in taxpayer bailout funds.  For more on this, see “Banks Spend TARP Funds on Anti-Consumer Lobbying” on the Huffington Post.