More Support for a Financial Product Safety Commission

Recent articles in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal discuss the growing momentum in Washington to create a Financial Product Safety Commission.  AFFIL and many other nonprofits support this idea.

Senator Dodd endorsed the idea on June 11, and the Administration is expected to propose such an agency this week as a key piece of its agenda for overall financial reform.  We like Dodd’s comments regarding an Independent Consumer Protection Agency:

The economic mess we’re in is rooted in a spectacular failure of consumer protection…  If the financial crisis has proven one thing, it is that protecting the financial well-being of American consumers should be our first priority as we work to bring our financial regulatory structure into the 21st Century.  I am committed to making this agency the centerpiece of my efforts as I work with President Obama and my colleagues to rebuild our financial architecture from the bottom up.

Of course, the banking industry does not like the idea of a new regulator, and this proposal “could prove a big test of Wall Street’s clout on Capitol Hill.”