Where You Stand (Part 4) – “All Politics Is Local”

So, we have TILA and RESPA provisions that are out of sync, we have questions surrounding lines of responsibility and authority, enforcement questions, and an all-around veritable festival of regulatory dissonance.  We have a bill passed, in the House of Representatives only, that requires HUD and The Fed to synchronize TILA and RESPA and provide a 1-page disclosure to consumers (keep in mind those two agencies have been given this task before and it hasn’t yet happened) and in the meantime…in the meantime the calendar keeps marching on – and the drop-dead date for RESPA and TILA compliance creeps ever closer.
 
And now we have the potential for a whole new ball game with a CFPA.  Holy Cow, Batman, we’re gonna need a superhero on this one.
 
But maybe, just maybe, some parts of it make good sense. And maybe, just maybe, we can thread the needle this time and get it pretty close to just right.  Maybe we won’t have to swing wildly between not enough regulation and too much regulation.  Maybe we can take what makes sense in CFPA and leave out what doesn’t.  Maybe we can avoid the CFPA equivalent of TSA’s “I’m sorry ma’am, but we have to throw away your half empty 1.25 oz bottle of hand lotion….it’s the law” and arrive at the parts that actually improve the situation.   And maybe, just maybe all of this can benefit me as a professional person, and as a consumer, and as a United States citizen.  Maybe what’s good for me doesn’t have to be bad for you.  Maybe we don’t have to rely on the invisible hand to balance my comfort with your pain.  And maybe I don’t have to get kicked where I sit by an invisible foot.
 
It’s a good thing we do have superheroes to represent our interests, whose full-time job it is to shape and influence all that is moving so rapidly these days.  But they can’t do it alone.  They need you.  They need you to know where you stand.  They need you to voice your opinion and to support their efforts in any way that you can.  You can’t be told what to think—not on RESPA, not on TILA, not on CFPA.  And as you can see from my personal dilemmas, figuring out what you think isn’t always an instant process.  But at the end of the day you have to get up from your seat and take a stand.  Otherwise, as a good friend of mine you may know from Arkansas (I won’t say his name but his initials are M.P.) says, otherwise You Get What You Get and You Don’t Pitch A Fit.
 
Take a stand, your stand, and make things make sense.