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President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. consumer watchdog survived aggressive questioning by lawmakers yesterday and looked on track to secure a confirmation vote that could come as soon as this month, Reuters reported. There were heated exchanges in the Senate as Democratic lawmakers grilled Kathy Kraninger, a government official, on her role in the administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy and questioned whether she had relevant experience to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Kraninger is a senior official at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). She has extensive government managerial experience including at the Department of Homeland Security, which she helped set up, and at OMB where she manages the financial regulation portfolio, according to her biography. Democrats and even some conservative Republicans have said that Kraninger, who is not well known in Washington, lacks relevant consumer finance experience, meaning her confirmation rested heavily on her performance before the Senate Banking Committee. But Republican senators yesterday pointed to Kraninger’s strong government managerial experience, adding she would have the help of consumer finance experts at the bureau if confirmed. Kraninger fended off repeated attacks from Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Brian Schatz, who pressed Kraninger several times to clarify her involvement in the immigration policy that resulted in the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents. Kraninger said several times she had no role in setting or developing that policy, but added when pushed that she had attended meetings relating to its implementation. Democrats also pushed Kraninger on her familiarity with consumer law, including the Military Lending Act, payday lending, credit card laws and discriminatory lending issues, with Senator Catherine Cortez Masto also forcing Kraninger to say she had no direct experience investigating or bringing legal actions against financial firms.

When the White House named Kathleen Kraninger in June to be the next director of a post-crisis consumer watchdog, many of the agency’s fiercest critics and its most ardent supporters had the same response were not sure who she was. After years of working as a career bureaucrat and congressional staff member, she will take a seat in the spotlight when senators from both parties examine her credentials to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the New York Times reported. While Kraninger, an official at the Office of Management and Budget, is expected to take a much more business-friendly approach to consumer protection than many Democrats would like, her nomination presents something of a Hobson’s choice. Scuttling her confirmation would extend the tenure of Mick Mulvaney, the agency’s acting director and the head of the budget office, who has tried to cripple the consumer bureau by freezing enforcement activity, calling for deep budget cuts and halting new investigations. Critics say Kraninger is likely to pursue a similar path as Mulvaney, with whom she has worked closely at the White House budget office, where she serves as associate director for general government. In her current role, Kraninger oversees the budgets for a wide swath of government agencies, including the Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

our U.S. states sued the federal government on Tuesday to void the new $10,000 cap on federal deductions for state and local taxes included in President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, Reuters reported. The lawsuit by New York, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey came seven months after Trump signed the $1.5 trillion overhaul passed by the Republican-led Congress, which cut taxes for wealthy Americans and slashed the corporate tax rate. Critics have said the cap would disproportionately harm “blue” states that tilt Democratic. Yesterday’s lawsuit adds to the many legal battles between such states, including several with high taxes, and the Trump administration, which was accused of unconstitutionally intruding on state sovereignty by imposing the cap. 

A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently denied the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's challenge to confidential designations desired by the defendant, Ocwen Financial Corporation, in a case in which CFPB is suing Ocwem for alleged violations of several federal consumer financial protection laws, that Florida Record reported. The June 25 court order by U.S. District Judge William Matthewman characterizes the case as “a government enforcement action,” citing the CFPB as the agency alleging violations. The alleged violations include improperly calculated loan balances, borrower payments which were allegedly wrongly allocated, errors in escrow processes and negligence in addressing consumer complaints. In the course of the legal challenge, the CFPB and defendant entered into a “stipulated protective order” or SPO, that governs confidentiality of information. The court document shows that after going through the process of interrogatories, the defendant argued that other information outside of SPO guidelines also deserves the confidentiality designation. CFPB's motion challenged this assertion.

Trump administration officials yesterday promised to maintain a focus on fraud against consumers, particularly the elderly and service members, using the resources of several regulatory and law-enforcement agencies, the Wall Street Journal reported. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to bring together a task force to strengthen the efforts of regulators to investigate and prosecute fraudulent schemes and recover the proceeds for consumers, the White House said. Participating in the initiative are the Justice Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission, as well as state and local enforcement offices. A Justice Department official said the new task force would continue the work of a similar initiative created by the Obama administration after the financial crisis while expanding efforts into such areas as fraud schemes targeting seniors and cybercrimes.

Actor-comedian Michael Torpey and cable network TruTV have devised “Paid Off,” a show that offers the elements of a classic trivia game show with a Freddie Mac twist, the Washington Post reported. Three contestants square off to answer a range of trivia questions. Contestants — most are in their late 20s or early 30s — must be carrying college debt to appear on the show. (Some of their loads run as high as $50,000.) The series will kick off the first of 16 episodes today, hoping to raise consciousness about the many students and graduates saddled with debt and provide a few of them some relief. Depending on how many questions the winner answers in a speed round, the show will pay up to 100 percent of their loans, with TruTV footing the bill. Student debt afflicts as many as 44 million Americans, with the average student now carrying $37,000 in loans. The total amount owed in the United States exceeds $1.3 trillion.

The Federal Reserve released figures yesterday showing that consumer debt increased $24.5 billion in May after an increase of $10 billion in April, the Associated Press reported. It was the biggest monthly increase since a rise of $24.8 billion in November 2016. The category that includes credit cards climbed $16.3 billion in May after increasing by $5 billion in April. The hefty gain in consumer credit in May pushed borrowing to a total $3.90 trillion on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The Fed’s monthly borrowing report does not include mortgages or any other debt secured by real estate, such as home equity lines of credit.