Wednesday
Oct142009
Pollsters Find That Swing Voters Demand Financial Watchdog Agency
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 5:31PM
By Ravi Bhatia, Talk Radio News Service
Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners detailed findings in a conference call Wednesday that show overwhelming support around the country for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which is currently being considered by the House Financial Services Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
“On a number of measures, people have an appetite for regulation,” Lake said. “Part of that is they see a strong relationship between these kinds of problems and the current economic status that we’re in.”
Lake Research Partners polled 900 swing voters from Oct. 7 to 11., including the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats and front line districts. She claims that the group poll, in some ways, represented a “tougher terrain” for pro-regulation policies than the nation as a whole. Two-thirds of the potential voters polled supported the creation of a CFPA.
“These are the districts that normally you would think of as being more suspicious of government, more worried about new bureaucracies, less likely to think that government is actually going to be effective. We used the word “regulation” [in the polling question] and we were quite surprised to find such robust support for that.”
According to Heather Booth of Americans for Financial Reform, the organization hopes to use the findings to target the states represented in the Financial Services Committee in order to get the CFPA passed through to the Senate.
“Just as there’s someone in Washington whose job it is to ensure you can't be sold an exploding toaster, there should also be a body setting clear rules of the road to keep you from being sold a mortgage or a car loan that will explode your credit rating and financial security,” Booth said.
Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners detailed findings in a conference call Wednesday that show overwhelming support around the country for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which is currently being considered by the House Financial Services Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
“On a number of measures, people have an appetite for regulation,” Lake said. “Part of that is they see a strong relationship between these kinds of problems and the current economic status that we’re in.”
Lake Research Partners polled 900 swing voters from Oct. 7 to 11., including the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats and front line districts. She claims that the group poll, in some ways, represented a “tougher terrain” for pro-regulation policies than the nation as a whole. Two-thirds of the potential voters polled supported the creation of a CFPA.
“These are the districts that normally you would think of as being more suspicious of government, more worried about new bureaucracies, less likely to think that government is actually going to be effective. We used the word “regulation” [in the polling question] and we were quite surprised to find such robust support for that.”
According to Heather Booth of Americans for Financial Reform, the organization hopes to use the findings to target the states represented in the Financial Services Committee in order to get the CFPA passed through to the Senate.
“Just as there’s someone in Washington whose job it is to ensure you can't be sold an exploding toaster, there should also be a body setting clear rules of the road to keep you from being sold a mortgage or a car loan that will explode your credit rating and financial security,” Booth said.
Reader Comments (1)
Are not the Democrats the ones that made it possible (or)required loan agencies to make loans without the proper equity? Now they want to put regulations back on the banks to prevent what they caused to start with? That makes sense!!!