Issue Position: Wall Street Accountability

Issue Position

When greed on Wall Street caused a nationwide financial crisis, Gary Peters led the fight to hold Wall Street accountable and implement common sense protections for hard working families. As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, Gary Peters got to work by helping write and pass the most sweeping Wall Street reform law since the Great Depression. As part of this work, Peters helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - the first agency dedicated entirely to protecting regular Americans from abusive and predatory lending practices. And when corporate executives rewarded themselves with taxpayer funded bailout bonuses, Gary Peters led the fight to hold them accountable by writing and passing a bill to reclaim this money.

-Worked with President Obama to hold Wall Street Accountable: In January 2009 when Gary Peters became our Congressman, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every month and the future of our auto industry was on shaky ground. After working with President Obama to ensure the survival and growth of our local auto manufacturing industry, Gary got right to work on the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This law put an end to taxpayer funded bailouts and implemented common sense reforms to hold big banks responsible and prevent the kind of reckless behavior that caused the financial meltdown from ever happening again.

-Passed legislation in the House to crack down on Wall Street CEO Bailout Bonuses: When news broke that corporate executives from AIG were rewarding themselves with taxpayer funded bonuses, Gary Peters immediately took action. In Congress, Peters wrote and passed a bill in the House to recover these funds and prevent any future bailout bonuses.

-Worked to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help Michigan Families: As part of working to write and pass the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Peters helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This newly formed agency's entire purpose is to protect families from abusive or predatory lending practices and require banking institutions to provide new levels of transparency in lending. By implementing new levels of oversight and accountability in mortgages, credit cards and other financial packages, Gary Peters is always fighting for our families.

-Cracked down on abusive credit card practices: As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman Peters worked with President Obama to help the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act become law. This important legislation banned the most abusive and deceptive credit card practices by outlawing retroactive rate increases, requiring credit card offers to be written in plain language, and increasing protections for college students and young people who are often targeted. The law also included an amendment authored by Peters that requires companies to allow consumers to pay off cards with the highest interest rates first. Before the Peters Amendment became law, credit card companies often forced consumers to pay off lower interest principal first.

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