Getting Congress to create the new Consumer Protection Agency was a major accomplishment of President Obama and Elizabeth Warren is at the top of the list of individuals who may be appointed to lead it. Last week, Wall Street (and the Republicans)increased their rhetoric against her, while a number of Democrats in Congress came out to support her. As the New York Times said in its editorial on July 24th, “The banks don’t oppose Ms. Warren because she doesn’t get it. They oppose her because she does.”
Well, I for one, cannot sing her praises loud enough. This 61-year-old Harvard
bankruptcy professor has got my heart (so much so that my wife is starting to get suspicious). She first came to my attention in 1998 when the banks were first starting to push their “Bankruptcy Reform Bill” (which finally got passed eight years later in 2005). The banks hired skilled lobbyists to portray the individuals who filed for bankruptcy as cunning scammers who were gaming the system and causing the poor banks to raise their interest rates on the rest of us. Unfortunately, there was no corresponding debtor’s lobby (Although NACBA, The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys,tried, only to be hopelessly out-gunned financially). All that our political leaders – including President Clinton – heard was the bank’s side, so all were in favor of stemming this so-called “abuse.”
Enter Elizabeth Warren, who had the opportunity to describe what was happening to Hilary Clinton one afternoon (Elizabeth later claimed that Hilary was her quickest student ever). She saw the banks predatory lending ploys (in which a 9.9% teaser rate on credit card balances quickly became a whopping 29.9%) as the true threats to our country’s middle class. Convincing Hilary (who, in turn, brought awareness of the issue to Bill), delayed the bank-inspired “Bankruptcy Reform” for eight years.
And for that, she will always have my heart.
--Allan H. Rosenthal, Legal Assistant
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