FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Contact: Nick Jacobs, 202-618-6430 or njacobs@bettermarkets.com

Washington, D.C. – Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, issued the following statement following the Trump administration’s court filing seeking to stop states from protecting student borrowers under state consumer protection laws.  If the Trump Administration is successful in preempting these state laws, states will no longer be able to protect student borrowers who are the victims of predatory lending.

“In the early 2000s, federal regulators sued states to prevent them from using their anti-predatory lending and consumer protection laws to stop egregious, widespread and fraudulent subprime lending.  Remarkably, after federal regulators stopped states from protecting consumers (technically, preempting those laws), the federal regulators then did nothing to protect consumers.  Massive subprime fraud on a national scale was then unleashed.  This was the match that lit the fuse that inflated the subprime bubble and ultimately lead to the 2008 financial crash.  Today’s actions by the Trump administration to preempt states seeking to protect student loan borrowers, along with their broader anti-consumer protection actions like crippling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and deregulating Wall Street, are ominous signs that history is going to repeat itself.”

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Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again. Better Markets works with allies – including many in finance – to promote pro-market, pro-business and pro-growth policies that help build a stronger, safer financial system that protects and promotes Americans’ jobs, savings, retirements and more. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.com.