Rep. Stefanik’s Six Month Report Card: A Constituent’s Response

Brian Harrington
Jul 20, 2017 · 4 min read

Representative Stefanik wrote here that she and the Congress have had a productive six months. And, I suppose, from the perspective of her wealthy donors, it has been productive.

Healthcare

The Republican House voted to strip millions of Americans of health care, while at the same time giving large tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans (the American donor class). The bill reduces Medicaid, offers tax cuts on capital gains and interest for the wealthy, eliminates a wage surtax on the same wealthy groups, eradicates protections for pre-existing conditions, and places rural medicine in even greater jeopardy.

The bill is awful policy. It was intended to allow Republicans to tell their base that they did something to ‘repeal’ Obamacare and to also give tax breaks to their donors. It does nothing to improve access, quality, or the deficit. It is a trainwreck and we must never forget that Rep. Stefanik voted for it.

Financial Choice Act

The Republican House, seeking to continue its theme of serving the wealthiest among us at the expense of the middle class and vulnerable, also passed legislation, The Financial Choice Act, that turns back the clock on our financial protection and regulatory structure. 2008 brought our country to the brink of financial catastrophe. Dodd-Frank, though containing some flaws, was the tool to help prevent such financial recklessness in the future. Despite what Rep. Stefanik writes, this Financial Choice Act does not prevent entities from becoming too big to fail. It does quite the opposite. It actually reduces the requirement for stress testing, a mechanism used to mitigate systemic risk in the financial industry by requiring banks to run scenarios to see how their balance sheets hold up under various economic situations. It further deregulates the financial industry, allowing the perverse and fraudulent practices of a risk-addicted financial sector to continue.

The Financial Choice Act also cripples the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. This group had been created to protect consumers — regular, everyday folks — from corrupt and predatory banking practices. Think about the Wells Fargo controversy in which bank employees, under pressure for upper management, were signing folks up for accounts that they did not want or had not approved. Or — credit card companies charging exorbitant fees.

The act also eliminates the Orderly Liquidation Authority. This process was instituted in Dodd-Frank to give certain emergency powers to the federal government. This authority can ensure an organized and competent liquidation of a bank’s assets should it fail. The OLA can manage that process in a way that a standard bankruptcy court could not. It can help disentangle the bank from the financial system. The OLA has has the ability to step in if an institution is failing, fire the current executives, take control of operations, and ensure that other financial companies that have a stake in the system to step-in and pay the costs associated with recovering the failed bank.

The elimination of the OLA, put simply, does the following:

  • Shifts the end-state burden of bailing out the financial system back to taxpayers (it takes us back to the George W. Bush model in 2008. Taxpayers will end up with the bill should a collapse happen
  • Eliminates the organized and qualified liquidation process
  • Prevents government regulators from firing bank executives and forcing the return of bonuses, even if the government needs to intervene to takeover a failing bank. That’s right, the federal government (and taxpayer) bear the burden and expense, but have no authority as the bankers walk away with their millions in bonuses.
  • Concentrates more and more power in the hands of fewer and fewer firms and people, often financial firms and bankers — many of which are key donors to the Republican Party (Please review the major donor sector for Rep. Stefanik).

Other Areas

Rep. Stefanik still refuses to hold traditional townhalls. She will only meet with constituents in a very controlled setting, where she controls the messaging and the structure. She appears to be afraid of defending her positions to her constituents.

On the Environment, she seems willing to acknowledge that climate change exists, but refuses to support any legislation that does anything about it. This is yet another example of her saying one thing but allowing her actions to go in a different direction.

A common theme across the first 6 months and, indeed, across Rep. Stefanik’s time in office has developed: talk like you are looking out for the middle class, but pass legislation that actually conveys more and more wealth and power to fewer and fewer people (many of which make up her donor list and reside outside of the district). I don’t know how long Representative Stefanik plans on trying to keep her seat. I suspect that she probably has other aspirations. She, like many Upstate politicians before her, are using this seat as a stepping stone to something else. So, it may end up being a short tenure, but her legacy will be clear: she tells us that she cares about finding solutions for the middle class people of this district, but, in contrast to her language, she assembles a voting record that caters to her wealthiest donors.

)