Shortly after President Donald Trump’s second term began, Elon Musk proclaimed “RIP CFPB” while trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The president and Congress slashed the federal agency’s budget, almost in half, by enacting the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. However, Musk’s chainsaw and Congress’s axe can’t cut through political reality: Voters really like the consumer bureau. Voters also back strong regulation of Wall Street, including finance industry newcomers from Big Tech.
These views are not confined to “the libs,” and they are not a flash in the pan. Republican, Democratic, and independent voters alike express overwhelming support for the consumer bureau in a new poll, conducted among likely midterm voters by the bipartisan polling team of Chesapeake Beach Consulting and Lake Research Partners on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending. The bureau’s broad popularity has been consistent over the past decade.
Republican politicians must grapple with public opinion on this before and after a fast-approaching election slated to focus on affordability. The new poll shows that across the political spectrum there is almost universal support to “regulate financial services and products to make sure they are fair to consumers.” Along these lines, strong majorities in the survey approve of several Biden-era CFPB rules. Over three-quarters of Republican voters agree with rules to limit the cost of credit card late fees and of overdraft fees while only around a tenth oppose these price controls. By comparably lopsided margins, these GOP rank-and-file favor a rule to expand CFPB regulation to cover payment apps such as Venmo. Voters are nearly unanimous in backing a rule aimed at “stopping financial companies from selling your sensitive personal data to marketers and scammers.” All four of these Biden-era regs were eliminated by the Administration, Congress, or the courts, pointing to divergence between GOP voters and officeholders.
Conservative voters clearly harbor strong concerns about bank fees, under-monitored financial products such as payment apps, and a desire to hold Wall Street accountable, and these views outweigh even their long-held skepticism of government intervention.
Voters want increased regulation not just for banks but also for so-called fintech (financial technology) companies that tout themselves as an alternative to Wall Street. The overwhelming majority of Republican voters believe fintechs should have to “follow the same rules and regulations as banks and other financial companies when they engage in similar businesses such as offering checking accounts, sending money, or making loans.” Reflecting concerns about the cost of living, a similar share of Republican voters support requiring newer financial products, such as Buy Now Pay Later credit (such as Klarna or Afterpay) and wage advance products (such as EarnIn or Dave), to comply with “consumer protections to make sure they are affordable and don’t drive people into long term debt.” Similarly, cryptocurrency is viewed less as “promising innovation” and more as the Wild West of finance, filled with fraud, scams, and instability.
WALL STREET IS GOING 23 HOURS. WHO TAKES THE KEYS FROM A BLIND ALGORITHM AT 2 A.M.?
Voters believe Silicon Valley and Wall Street have too much sway over the economy and too much influence in Washington. For instance, federal policymakers are seen as prioritizing the interests of a politically connected crypto industry that spends heavily on elections rather than the interests of the average person, and voters of all political stripes are less likely to back a politician whose campaign is funded by crypto.
Financial policy issues continue to change, but Americans’ broad and deep support for a heavily regulated consumer finance market is set to stay the same. It has become a fixture of public opinion. How GOP leaders choose to respond to this fact is up to them.
Robert Carpenter is a longtime Republican pollster, founder of Chesapeake Beach Consulting, and adviser to many Republican candidates.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
