General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow the GOP Invented Elizabeth Warren
Sally KohnThe senator and would-be presidential contender just wanted to be a Washington bureaucrat. Now, thanks to Republican opposition, shes become the de facto leader of the left.
In 2007, a Harvard Law School professor wrote an article for the journal Democracy proposing a federal watchdog agency regulating consumer financial products. It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house, the professor wrote. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the streetand the mortgage wont even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner.
Written in the very early days of what would become the Great Recession, the professor noted that the sub-prime mortgage market was a stunning example of the lack of such government oversight, pointing out that 52 percent of all sub-prime mortgages originated with companies with no federal supervision at all.
Three years later (PDF), after the economy had collapsed from the weight of crumbling sub-prime mortgage debt, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and established the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Elizabeth Warren, the professor who had originated the idea, was appointed by President Obama to set up the new agency.
But a year later, in 2011, when the agency was ready for a formal headwho would require Senate confirmationRepublicans made their opposition to Warren known. One of Warrens deputies was, instead, put forward to head the new agency. But by then it was too lateRepublicans had turned Warren into a populist hero.
Had Republicans not stood in the way of Warren running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she would have never instead run for Senate in Massachusettswhich, of course, helped her star rise. In fact, according to Google Trends, Warren was still relatively unknown and uninteresting to the American public until she ran for Senate against GOP golden boy Scott Brown.
Had Warren been appointed to run the CFPB, her preferred choice at the time, she would have likely been relegated to the dusty obscurity of the Washington bureaucracymaking a difference every day in the lives of the American people by retooling the consumer financial market but without the spotlight and bully pulpit of her Senate perch. She almost certainly would not have become what she is today, which is the de facto leader of the American left.
more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/12/how-the-gop-invented-elizabeth-warren.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Kohn
merrily
(45,251 posts)Starting to seem less like accident or incompetence.
It's also a simplistic theory.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Do you doubt that had the republicans NOT opposed her heading up the Bureau, she would have languished in that bureaucratically pigeon-holed, and easily obstructed, agency?
It is far easier to obstruct, silence, make ineffective, and/or ignore an agency head than a sitting Senator.
BTW, what have you heard from Julian Castro, of late?
merrily
(45,251 posts)headline says.
Edison invented the light bulb. (well, maybe. turns out he was a bit of a thief as well as a genius.) That conveys to me it was his idea and his creation, not that he hates light bulbs. Again, please bear in mind, some people read only headlines.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)and Propelled to a national platform" ...
Tomato ... to-ma-to.
merrily
(45,251 posts)OKNancy
(41,832 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)She runs rings around all the morons on the GOP side who tout Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman and voodoo trickle down economics.
Kick in to the DU tip jar?
This week we're running a special pop-up mini fund drive. From Monday through Friday we're going ad-free for all registered members, and we're asking you to kick in to the DU tip jar to support the site and keep us financially healthy.
As a bonus, making a contribution will allow you to leave kudos for another DU member, and at the end of the week we'll recognize the DUers who you think make this community great.