Issue Position: Consumer Protection

Issue Position

One of the responsibilities of government is to safeguard the public. The primary mission of Pennsylvania's regulatory departments and agencies is to protect consumers from predatory lending practices, corporate fraud and consumer rip-offs. Unfortunately, as the current mortgage foreclosure crisis has demonstrated, this responsibility has often been subverted by special interest influence. Pennsylvania needs to restore this focus through a comprehensive policy agenda designed to crack-down on lending and financial practices that are abusive, including continued opposition to payday lending, stricter regulation of tax-anticipation loans and expansion of programs that provide consumers with alternatives to high-interest unsecured credit loans.

As governor, Tony will lead the fight to restore the public's faith in their government and work to identify and eliminate abusive lending practices that take advantage of hard working families. He supports the appointment of an Insurance Consumer Advocate whose task would be to represent ratepayers in cases in which auto, health and personal insurance companies seek to raise their rates. He would also pursue policies that would facilitate greater competition in telecommunication services, thereby providing people with greater choices and lower rates for cable and internet service which have become essential utilities for most of us.

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