Speeches and Floor Statements

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman released the following statement on the House passage of the #WrongChoiceAct:

“We’ve spent the past five months passing bills that would reduce consumer protections, civil rights protections, environmental protections, and quite frankly, reducing the possibility for achievement of the American dream. The crafting of the so-called Financial Choice Act doubles down on this dangerous precedent and continues to move our nation in the wrong direction.

Yet again, we are punishing hard-working families to reward financial institutions who are taking risks on their future, our nation’s economic prosperity and financial security. We know what this devastation looks like as communities across this nation continue to be an example, especially in New Jersey as we are still recovering from this ruin. Rolling back Dodd-Frank protections would disproportionately harm New Jerseyans, a state that still leads the nation in foreclosures. This bill threatens our state’s existing consumer financial protections on payday lending, car title loans, and other predatory lending schemes.

Since Dodd-Frank was implemented Republicans have been licking their chops for an opportunity to repeal it, and today, with Donald Trump at the helm, they’re emboldened in their dangerous agenda. Republicans claimed Dodd-Frank would kill jobs, stifle lending, and stunt our economic recovery.  None of these claims came true. On the contrary, a decade from the start of the Great Recession, we‘ve halved unemployment from the peak of the downturn, created millions of jobs, all while Wall Street has enjoyed its most profitable years in history. I wish my Republican colleagues would simply be honest with the American people instead of propping up strawmen to meet their political ambitions.”