WASHINGTON, D. C. – Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown on Tuesday pledged to shift the focus of the U.S. Senate’s banking committee from legislating in Wall Street’s interests to taking on the corporate business model that treats workers as expendable and helping workers and their families.
“When work has dignity, Wall Street doesn’t get to run the entire economy and write its own set of rules,” pledged Brown, who will chair the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee after Georgia’s new Democratic U.S. senators and President-elect Joe Biden are sworn in. ‘ We measure success through the eyes of workers and their families, not the stock market.”
Starting to call the legislative shots in the middle of public health, economic and climate crises “will call for us to aim higher and think bigger than we have in the past to deliver real results that make a difference in people’s lives,” said Brown, who has been the committee’s top Democrat since 2015.
“That means real investment in housing and transportation and people’s paychecks to get our country through this pandemic,” said Brown, who vowed to restore the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to its full strength as a voice for those who “don’t have a corporate lobbyist at their beck and all,” and to take on big banks and big technology companies that “we know have far too much power over people’s lives.”
“For too long, this committee has ignored all the ways our economy still doesn’t work for Black and Brown Americans and the racism embedded in so many of our systems,” said Brown. “This committee has flat out pretended that climate change doesn’t exist. That ends on January 21. Big oil and other polluters spend billions of dollars trying to convince people that we have to choose between the economy and protecting people from the ravages of climate change. We know that’s a false choice.”
Brown said Biden’s nominees to head federal agencies have a more pro-consumer attitude than Trump’s and don’t assume Wall Street should run everything, and said Biden’s “build back better” philosophy means the economy should work for everyone, not just Wall Street. He said the CFPB needs to return to its role as an agency that was always on the side of consumers, and said it has protected payday lenders and big banks under Trump.