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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) protects consumers from financial fraud and scams and was set up as part of the effort to clean up Wall Street following the 2008 financial crash. It's working. Since it was set up five and a half years ago the CFPB has fielded more than 1 million consumer complaints and returned $12 billion dollars to 27,000,000 harmed consumers.

Now the CFPB is under attack by President-elect Donald ("Goldman Sachs") Trump and the Wall-Street-owned Republican Congress. They want to bring back Wall Street's ability to profit from scams based on defrauding and harvesting the public.

Tuesday, for example, Republican Senators Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Senator Mike Lee of Utah called on Trump to fire CFPB Director Richard Cordray because the bureau has "pursued costly regulatory policies."

Action: Call your member of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and say "protect the CFPB."

Senator Warren Speaks About Protecting CFPB

On a Tuesday evening call co-sponsored by Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, Center for Popular Democracy, Communication Workers of America, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Consumer Law Center, People's Action and U.S. PIRG, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) spoke about the need to protect the CFPB.

Introduced by Lisa Donner, Executive Director of American's for Financial Reform, Warren said "Trump has surrounded himself with a team of billionaires and bankers" and that "big banks are salivating with the chance to gut the CFPB. They’re going to have a real fight on their hands."

She explained how, following the financial crisis, "AFR and people across the country showed that a dedicated grassroots effort can beat Wall Street at their own game. The other guys were spending more than a million dollars a day fighting against efforts" to regulate Wall Street. "We won because we made our voices heard."

Warren said, "It’s time to send a message to Wall Street and their Republican friends, they better think twice about undermining financial reform because the American people are watching."

Warren concluded by saying that the public needs to fight to keep the agency operating. Now it becomes our job to defend it. And now the consumer agency has a record, it has allies, it has millions of people across the country that it has helped. We’re going to do this. Were going to protect the agency and protect Dodd-Frank

I know that if we fight together we can win and we can make this country work better, not just for some people but we can make it work better for all families in this country.

Debbie Adams From Michigan United

Also on the call was Debbie Adams of Detroit, a grassroots leader with Michigan United (a People's Action affiliate) who helped lead the recent fight to help the CFPB come up with a payday lending rule. Adams said, "Every word in the name of this agency clearly and succinctly tells us what it does."

She continued, "The horrific attacks that Wall Street has launched against the CFPB cannot go unchallenged. We must gather as many people as we can and urge them to please call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell your Congressional representative to please stand up for the CFPB and our communities."

Adams concluded, "We must not stand idly by and lose the regulations that CFPB as worked so hard to create. We must continue to fight hard and passionately for the CFPB to continue doing what it does."

Also on the call were Ed Mierzwinski, Federal Consumer Program Director and Senior Fellow for U.S. PIRG, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Liz Schuler, Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO.

Action: Ask Members Of Congress, "Whose Side Are You On?"

People's Action urges people to call their congressperson at (202) 224-3121 to tell them to protect the CFPB. But that's just a start. Visit their offices, attend events and town halls where they are appearing and ask them, "Whose side are you on? Are you on Wall Street's side or the consumer's side?" Be visible and be loud.

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