‘If they would like the right to deny service to certain companies, the federal government should have the right to withdraw its taxpayer-funded guarantees…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A coalition of five conservative senators announced Thursday that they planned to hold virtue-signalling banks accountable for supporting left-wing campaigns that undermine federal immigration policy.
GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Ted Cruz of Texas said the Financial Defense of Industrial Contractors Act would withhold government-backed insurance to any large banks that refused government agencies or contractors who had good credit standing and abided by the law.
“Some of our nation’s largest banks have decided to cater to the radical left’s ‘woke’ agenda by abusing their systemic influence in our economy to deprive law-abiding federal contractors of banking services critical to their business,” Rubio said in a press release from his office.
The announcement specifically called out six major banks: Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Barclays and SunTrust.
“Banks have a right to deny funds to certain businesses, but they shouldn’t enjoy taxpayer-provided guarantees if they are undermining the public policy of the United States,” he continued.
Astoundingly, the financial institutions have said they are refusing to do business with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its contractors.
“By denying critical financial services to ICE contractors, big banks have hobbled ICE’s efforts to protect Americans,” Cotton said. “These banks shouldn’t receive public funding if they’re putting the public at risk.”
In addition to immigration enforcement, some also had veered off the rails in supporting other signature items in the Left’s agenda, including depriving citizens of their Second Amendment rights by refusing gun-rights groups.
The banks have faced pressure from powerful House Democrats—particularly those on the House Financial Services Committee, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
The committee also contains several far-left Squad members, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who have been generally hostile toward commercial interests and sought to redefine the rules of commerce to serve their socialist agenda.
Earlier in the week, Tlaib asked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell why the central bank shouldn’t supply bailout funding to distressed state and local governments, such as Detroit and Puerto Rico, where corruption and poor fiscal management had led to financial insolvency.
Powell responded that the Fed’s role was to oversee and support monetary institutions and not other areas of government.
Likewise, during the Obama administration, Attorney General Eric Holder sought to use coercion tactics to force the banks to comply with areas of its policy agenda or risk spurious Justice Department investigations that may be costly, time-consuming and bad for the banks’ image.
By contrast, the Republican senators are simply demanding that banks uphold the law by not discriminating against customers for political reasons.
“Some large banks are weaponizing their essential position in the economy to discriminate against companies who assist our immigration law enforcement operations,” Cramer said.
“If they would like the right to deny service to certain companies, the federal government should have the right to withdraw its taxpayer-funded guarantees.”
Sadly, corrupt social-justice warriors on the Left see no issue in leveraging their own authority for act of civil disobedience, such as the recent green-light laws in New York that both granted driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and reaffirmed the sanctuary state’s refusal to cooperate with ICE and other federal immigration enforcement agencies.
But when the noncompliance leads to self-wrought consequences, such as the Department of Homeland Security’s denial of services to the state, they are quick to holler about their own political oppression.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was caught lying earlier this week about a leaked DHS memo, which he falsely claimed had discussed punishing the defiant blue states.
“[T]his is what happens when an administration believes they’re above the law,” Cuomo griped during an MSNBC appearance.
“This is what happened with Ukraine, this is what happened with [Lt. Col. Alexander] Vindman, this is what happened with Roger Stone,” he continued. “Their politics come first, and law means nothing.”