| BIG MONEY WINS OVER LITTLE GUY
The White House is welcoming a congressional measure killing the ability of millions of Americans to band together to sue bank or credit card companies to resolve financial disputes in a major win for Wall Street.
The Senate narrowly voted to nullify the rule, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the final vote to break a 50-50 tie. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.
"President Donald J. Trump applauds the Congress for passing," the resolution, the White House said in a statement shortly after the vote that highlighted its own Treasury Department report criticizing the rule.
"The rule would harm our community banks and credit unions by opening the door to frivolous lawsuits by special interest trial lawyers."
The banking industry had been lobbying hard to roll back the regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Perhaps the most egregious assault on customers most recently was the Wells Fargo rip-off of their customers.
The bureau had moved to ban most types of mandatory arbitration clauses found in the fine print of agreements consumers often enter into when opening a checking account or getting a credit card.
The vote reflects the effort of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to undo regulations that the GOP argues harm the free market.
"So who does forced arbitration help? Wall Street banks and other huge corporations that never pay the price for cheating working people," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
Richard Cordray, director of the consumer bureau, said: "Tonight's vote is a giant setback for every consumer in this country. Wall Street won and ordinary people lost. This vote means the courtroom doors will remain closed for groups of people seeking justice and relief when they are wronged by a company."
Right now, if a bank wrongs you â opens a fake account in your name, say â you might be able to move your business elsewhere. But even if you do, it's exceedingly difficult to get restitution.
That's because a common condition of doing business with a bank, credit-card company, payday lender or other financial institution is that you sign away your legal rights.
Often buried in the fine print is language saying you must resolve any dispute through arbitration, with the arbitrator sometimes selected and paid by the very same company that wronged you. More important, you and any other victims injured in the same way are also prevented from pooling your resources together to file a class action.
Coming next a longtime Republican promise, tax cuts that sound like they will help the working stiff a little, but will be big cuts for the wealthiest Americans, who promise trickle down benefits, but contrary to Conservative thinking, will further increase the national debt by 1 1/2 trillion dollars. The cutting of the estate tax will mean billions of dollars in the hands of less than 1% of Americans.
Trump supporters don't seem to mind. America will be great again, trickling more.
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