Consumers First Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Chair, I first want to join my colleagues in thanking Chairwoman Waters for her leadership for so many years and, in particular, her leadership in bringing this bill to the floor.
We are here today to reinstate the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which have been severely weakened, and it includes the curtailing of enforcement of fair lending laws and removing a standalone office on student loans. We must ensure, however, that our elderly population is included in this debate. We must not leave our elderly behind.
My amendment is simple and straightforward. It will require the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to issue an annual report to Congress of consumer complaints from older Americans, including a State-by-State breakdown of complaints by type of consumer financial product or service.
Madam Chair, studies show that people 50 and older hold 83 percent of the wealth in the United States. However, these same individuals, who grew up in a workforce very different than the evolving, technologically driven one of today and who are experiencing aging health disparities, are prime targets for scammers. This has resulted in our seniors losing anywhere from $2.9 billion to $36 billion each year from financial exploitation.
Having served as the director of my State's, Colorado's, Department of Regulatory Agencies in the past, I had the honor of working on behalf of Coloradans to protect them from unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent business practices. We certainly saw many of these practices up close.
While I am proud that our department was able to recover millions of dollars for consumers across Colorado, including senior citizens, we must do more. In an era of sophisticated targeting of our seniors, we must act, and I certainly believe that is the case at the Federal level.
So, in a world in which we continue to hear of calculated financial fraud and various data breaches, I believe we should be working to protect all consumers, not making it easy for bad actors to take advantage of them, in particular, making sure that we protect vulnerable populations.
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