Sen. Warren: We need to expand Dodd-Frank

Financial reform advocates are using the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to push for more financial regulations.

Starring in a video produced by Americans for Financial Reform, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) calls for expanding the federal law that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

“We need a world where the largest financial institutions in this country understand they can’t build their business models around cheating people, and they can’t get out there and take crazy risks and expect the American taxpayer to pick up the tab when something goes wrong,” she said.

Warren, an architect of the CFPB, described the world of 10 to 15 years ago as a place where anyone could get a ‘”free” credit card.

“It was only somewhere back on page 31 in tiny little fine print that you found out the true cost of the credit card, the real risks associated with this credit card,” she said. “That was a world where the game was rigged and the big banks were making money hand over fist.”

Since Dodd-Frank, Warren said, the CFPB, which just under 4 years old, has already forced the biggest financial institutions in the country to return more than $10 billion to people they cheated.

“I’m incredibly proud of what we built. We built Dodd-Frank with the biggest, most powerful institutions fighting us every inch of the way,” she said. “It’s the most David vs. Goliath story. You know they spent more than a million dollars a day fighting against financial reform and particularly fighting against that little consumer agency.”

Under the video on its website, Americans for Financial Reform is taking signatures on a survey that asks lawmakers to move forward not backwards on financial reform.

“We are counting on you to stand up to the industry lobbyists, protect the Dodd-Frank Act, and fight for a banking system that works for all Americans,” the survey says.