5 Things the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Will Do for You

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) doesn't officially launch until July 2011, but already House Republicans are trying to gut the agency's powers and effectiveness.

Three bills passed this month in Congressional subcommittees – and slated to be voted on on May 12 by the full House Financial Services committee – would greatly weaken the bureau by limiting its ability to issue meaningful rules, and by placing a bi-partisan committee, instead of a single director, in charge of the CFPB. Still other proposals call for the CFPB, which was created to protect the public against financial abuses, to be eliminated altogether.

"We are dismayed at the proposals on the Hill to weaken the agency before it even gets started," says Jean Ann Fox, director of financial services at Consumer Federation of America. "American consumers need a strong independent CFPB to police credit and payment markets and to put consumer protection first."

Not sure what the CFPB will do for consumers? Here are five things, which translate into five reasons we should all fight for a strong CFPB and tell the politicians to back off from this much-needed watchdog agency.