CBA’s Johnson to WSJ: “It’s Time to Reboot the CFPB and Appoint a New Leader”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Consumer Bankers Association President and CEO Lindsey Johnson penned a letter to the editor in response to The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board’s recent editorial questioning why Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra – an appointee of former President Joe Biden and a protégé of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) – is still at the helm of the Bureau since President Donald J. Trump has taken office. In the letter, Johnson highlights the litany of ways the Chopra CFPB harmed consumers through its regulatory actions over the past four years and calls for a new Director to replace Chopra:
“Through its government price-setting agenda, the CFPB has made it more expensive for consumers on the margins to access critical financial services such as credit cards, overdraft safety nets and free or low-cost checking accounts. In some cases, the bureau’s actions simply took away these services altogether. It’s time to reboot the CFPB and appoint a new leader who will put consumers and sound policy ahead of politics.”
To read the full letter to the editor, click HERE or see below.
Is the CFPB Helping or Harming Consumers?
By Lindsey Johnson
The Wall Street Journal
Jan. 29, 2025
Your editorial “Why Is Rohit Chopra Still Employed at the CFPB?” (Jan. 24) outlines the litany of reasons the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director must go. In recent years the bureau became a political wing of the Biden administration. It used its press arm as a bully pulpit, even naming individuals in press releases regarding public enforcement actions in which they had nothing to do with the accusations being made.
By driving a re-election campaign instead of protecting consumers, the bureau’s headline-driven approach hurt many of the people it was charged with serving. The Biden-Chopra CFPB promoted a red-taped-laced regulatory nanny state that threatened to debank millions of hardworking Americans by pushing them out of the banking system.
Through its government price-setting agenda, the CFPB has made it more expensive for consumers on the margins to access critical financial services such as credit cards, overdraft safety nets and free or low-cost checking accounts. In some cases, the bureau’s actions simply took away these services altogether. It’s time to reboot the CFPB and appoint a new leader who will put consumers and sound policy ahead of politics.