Comprehensive Debt Collection Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAVIDSON. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the surface-level intentions of those who support this bill, things like checking the abuse of the Federal Government's power. But this comprehensive package would leave both consumers and creditors worse off than they are today.

Certainly, there are elements that I do support, notably, language from the Fair Debt Collection Practices for Servicemembers Act. I was proud to cosponsor that particular bill when introduced by Ms. Dean from Pennsylvania, which passed the House last month. The Fair Debt Collection Practices for Servicemembers Act would ensure that debt collectors won't be able to threaten military servicemembers with a reduction in rank or have their security clearances revoked. Frankly, that keeps our military focused on fighting and winning our wars, instead of being co-opted into debt collection.

But this is a truly partisan bill as packaged together, and it exemplifies what good work we can do when we work together in a bipartisan fashion, to see some of the components of it, and what can be done to undermine that work when it is all put together in the final package that we have before us here today.

Once I took a look and saw the rest of this bill, the excitement I had for the components that I do support quickly dissipated. Taken as a whole, this overwhelmingly partisan bill amounts to a direct attack on creditors and an indirect attack on consumers.

This bill would distort credit histories by removing predictive information from credit reports, including medical debt. While I recognize the implications that such information has on credit history, we must understand that removing predictive information only increases the cost of credit. When uncertainty is higher, it is priced into the cost, for individuals as well as all consumers with low or moderate income.

Furthermore, this bill restricts the ability of debt collectors to collect on unpaid debt. It does this by forbidding debt collectors from contacting consumers via simple communications, as my colleague, Mr. McHenry, was highlighting. While I think we can all agree that debt collectors should be forbidden from carrying out abusive practices, we should certainly not forbid them from using traditional communication tools that are likely to succeed in contacting the person that owes the debt.

Additionally, in October of 2020, the CFPB issued a rule to modernize debt collection practices, and this rule reflects the technical precision needed to ensure that both consumers and debt collectors are protected. Rather than tying the hands of debt collectors, like this bill does, we should push for consistency with that CFPB rule from last fall.

In closing, I believe we should be clear on something. Consumers who owe a debt and businesses that are unable to collect the debt are both at a disadvantage when debt collectors are prohibited from contacting consumers.

Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to this bill.

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