Poison Pill Riders in Senate Financial Services Funding Package Must Be Removed
Nov. 20, 2017
Poison Pill Riders in Senate Financial Services Funding Package Must Be Removed
Statements From Public Citizen Experts
Note: Today, the U.S. Senate Financial Services Appropriations subcommittee posted the FY 2018 chairman’s recommendation and explanatory statement for the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations package. The package contains several poison pill policy riders unrelated to government funding.
“This bill continues to halt important work by the IRS to create bright lines where nonprofits engage in political activity. Further, it blocks the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from considering a rule for corporate political spending disclosure. And it relaxes campaign finance coordination limits, opening the spigot for more corporate political spending. Campaign finance demands enormous reform, and stalling popular and needed reforms moves us backward.”
-Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen
“Republicans are seeking to stifle the effectiveness of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. With this bill, they’re strangling it by removing its funding from the Federal Reserve and subjecting it to congressional appropriations. Look no further than the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which under the Senate legislation would be put on a starvation diet. That only invites rogue traders to prey on agriculture and other markets critical to the real economy.”
-Bart Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division
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