By the Collections Agitator

Will Biden Let you Rest, go to School and See a Doctor?

What steps might President-Elect Joe Biden’s administration take to safeguard consumers and restore funding and adequate staffing at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)? Since the CFPB is the watchdog, police, and consumer advocate, we strongly hope President Biden is as committed to consumer protections as Candidate Biden proposed to be.

Let’s recall some consumer-friendly proposals Candidate Biden promoted on the campaign trail, including student loan forgiveness, healthcare, housing, and a revitalized and empowered CFPB.

Can you or your family member now get that college degree?

Candidate Biden proposed progressive changes in higher education. Those changes would increase access and affordability to secondary education to many dreaming of a degree with additional financial support to historically marginalized communities.  Free undergraduate tuition at public colleges/universities for households earning less than $125,000 annually; two-years free tuition at private HBCUs, Tribal Colleges, and other minority-serving institutions; increased Pell Grant amounts and student loan forgiveness including canceling $10,000 for all federal loan borrows as COVID-19 relief.

You can go to the doctor, and you can go to the doctor.

Adding a Public Option to the Affordable Cares Act (ACA) would ensure millions more American citizens and residents could afford and access healthcare outside of emergency room visits. This means low-income residents in states that opted out of the ACA would automatically be enrolled with little or no premium payments. Medical debt is a source of financial, housing, transportation, and food insecurity for uninsured, underinsured, and even insured American residents. ACA expansion would go a long way toward reducing family homelessness.  But Biden’s plan could be for naught if the conservative tilted Supreme Court rules the zero penalty individual mandate voids the ACA.

A Place to Rest

The incoming President is taking the oath of office right when COVID-19 eviction and mortgage moratoriums are ending. Will 2021 begin with a mountain of evictions and foreclosures not seeing before, even during the mortgage meltdown of the mid-2000s? The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reports in a November 8, 2020, MarketWatch article that roughly 1.3 million renting households will be delinquent by December 2020. What does this look like-it looks like 2.8 million adults and 1.1 million children could be facing homelessness. And while the CDC, along with individual states and municipalities, have prohibitions on evictions- we’ve seen the stories of sheriffs showing up to evict families. The reality is housing insecurity is present and has an upward trajectory.  

A well funded, re-staffed, and strengthened CFPB is important in routine times. With the looming housing and healthcare crisis, it is now necessary.  Sensing the growing tide and wariness of many financially strapped potential voters, candidate Biden embraced some of the ideals of progressive Democrats. Specifically, Mr. Biden’s views slide a little to the left in adopting Senator Warren’s focus on re-examining consumer bankruptcy and returning the CFPB’s bite. Underfunding, paltry fine levying, and lax policy enforcement plagued the CFPB during the current administration’s tenure. President Biden must do better in supporting programs and government offices charged with protecting the public from corporate wrongdoers.

Many essential items are clamoring for the new administration’s attention. The ones mentioned above directly impact the economy and the nation’s ability to recover once COVID-19 is effectively managed as an environmental hazard we learn to navigate. We, Tribe members, must keep our eyes, ears, and mouths open to ensure the campaign promises actualize. We must follow the leadership of Ms. Abrams and push through to create change. This means creating and sustaining “good trouble.” How, voting in local, regional, state, and national elections, realizing that as a voting block, we move things along or allow them to stall.

Your Immediate Ask: Know your local candidates’ records or their public statements — if their positions don’t match your interests-vote them out. YES— WE UNDERSTAND CLEARER THAN EVER BEFORE THAT EVERY VOTE CAST OR NOT, MATTERS!

WE’VE ALWAYS MATTERED! AND ONCE AGAIN THEY ARE REMINDED!