Here’s another letter I want to share. Some of you may have also received it too.
I can see that Elon Musk would like to cosplay as someone well-versed in how the government works.
But he could use a basic history and civics lesson.
Musk and Trump are trying to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau right now. This is the agency we created to look out for consumers following the crash of 2008 — where millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings — and the big banks were bailed out.
The CFPB exists because it was passed by Congress and signed into law. A bill was passed by the House. A bill was passed in the Senate. And then it was signed into law by President Obama.
And it is only Congress — not Musk, not Trump, not some weird 22-year-old programmer that idolizes Musk — that could have the power to shut this agency down. That’s how government works.
Yet, Musk thinks he can shut this agency down by simply firing off of a tweet.
I’ll pause my lesson for a second. I think it’s important for us to zoom out and continue asking: Why is it that these two billionaires want to shut down the CFPB so badly?
In the nearly 15 years that this agency has been around, it’s returned over $21 billion directly to consumers who got cheated by financial institutions.
That’s $21 billion back in the pockets of seniors, students, service members, veterans, families struggling to make it to the end of the month, and other consumers who got scammed by big banks, corporations, credit card companies, medical debt collectors, and other institutions that can rely on predatory tactics in the fine print to boost profits.
$21 billion returned to people who just want a chance to build a little economic security and not get cheated in the meantime.
The CFPB has been targeted since before it was created. Wall Street lobbied against it because they knew an agency like this would bite into their profit model, and they were right.
For years, Republican politicians have tried and tried again to repeal it in Congress — and they have failed every single time. Cases against the CFPB have even gone up to the Supreme Court — twice — and both times the Court ruled the agency as Constitutional.
But Trump and Musk are hellbent on this. Why?
You would think that someone like Donald Trump, someone who is supposedly interested in draining the swamp and lowering costs for families, would actually be all-for an agency that returns money taken by swampy corporations back to families.
You would think that someone like Elon Musk, someone who is supposedly interested in getting rid of fraud, would be all-for an agency that works to mitigate fraud.
But, no.
Trump himself claimed this week that the CFPB was created to “destroy some very good people.”
The “very good people” — sounds familiar — that he’s referring to are people who have taken advantage of working families. People who have preyed on working families. People who have lied to working families.
People who are just like him.
That $21 billion that the CFPB has returned to consumers is $21 billion that Wall Street executives and billionaire CEOs — the people that Trump and Musk work for — believe that they’re entitled to. That’s what this is about.
Trump and Musk think that they can pull a fast one on the American people with this scheme, and that we won’t care or that we won’t realize what this is actually about. They’re wrong.
What can we do at this moment? What Trump and Musk are doing is a clear violation of law, and we’re in the courts fighting this.
An important role you can play, Joanne, is to help tell the true story of this agency. The CFPB has fought for us. Now it’s our turn to fight for the CFPB.
If you have been personally helped by the CFPB — if you have filed a complaint with them, got money returned to you, or have benefitted from any oversight and enforcement over a company you were interacting with — I need to hear from you right now.
If you or someone you know has gotten help from the CFPB, please click here and share your story with our team.
This is personal for me because it’s personal to me when people get cheated.
It’s personal to me when someone ends up paying tens of thousands of dollars more on a mortgage because tricks built into the system meant they couldn’t compare prices.
It’s personal to me when some kid borrowed money to go to school, and the lender lies to them about which program will be the cheapest for them.
It’s personal to me when people who can’t afford to hire their own fleet of lawyers and lobbyists end up with the short end of the stick, over and over and over, while a handful of giant companies make bazillions of dollars tricking and trapping those people in one financial product after another.
That’s why this is personal to me. And I want to hear how this is personal for you.
I’ve spent years fighting for this agency. I’ve spent my whole career digging into how to rebuild the middle class. With our toes right on the edge of a constitutional crisis, I’m going to do every single thing I can to protect the CFPB because the CFPB protects us.
This fight is about more than just one agency.
This fight is about hardworking people versus the billionaires who want to squeeze more and more and more money out of them.
We can’t let them win. So thank you for being in this fight with me.
Elizabeth
