The GOP is known for being tough on
crime—except when it's padding their pockets.
I thought Donnie Trump and his fellow Republicans were big law
‘n order politicians. So, why are they trying to scrap the sheriff and unleash
thousands of robbers to run wild across America?
The sheriff they want to nix is the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau.
The thieves they’re out to help are corporate debt collectors
who pay pennies on the dollar for huge databases of overdue bills, then hound
the borrowers to pay up.
Debt collectors profit from weak regulations that let them
bully, harass, and run roughshod over tens of thousands of consumers every
year—including people who’ve already paid off their debt or never even incurred
it.
Every year, debt collection firms routinely abuse the law and
overload our courts by filing hundreds of thousands of lawsuits against
debtors.
Masses of these suits are backed only by flimsy, out-of-date, erroneous, forged, or non-existent evidence. Collectors don’t care about the evidence. Their intent isn’t to win in court, but to frighten or bamboozle borrowers into paying.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently sided with the
victims of this corporate thievery, proposing new rules to stop the abuse.
Trumpist Republicans have responded with outrage—not at the
corporate outlaws, but at the sheriff. The GOP’s 2016 party platform advocates
abolishing the bureau, calling it a “rogue agency” for daring to stand up to the real rogues that
are openly robbing workaday Americans.
Why is the GOP so shamefully soft on crime?
Because it’s not just small-fry debt collectors involved in this
outlandish shakedown of innocent borrowers, but such Wall Street powerhouses as
JP Morgan Chase and Citibank—corporations that also happen to be generous
political donors to Republican candidates.
You thought daylight robbery was a crime? Well, it depends on
who is robbing whom.
OtherWords
columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
He’s the editor of the populist newsletter, The
Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org.
