The Atlantic, February 18, 2021, Why Democrats Are Fighting Over an Obscure D.C. Bureaucrat
Progressives and moderates are split over Michael Barr, the president’s likely nominee to become one of the banking industry’s top regulators.
Advocacy groups that focus on improving low-income Americans’ financial access and combatting redlining welcomed the news. They see Barr as an ally who will reverse federal regulators’ traditional reluctance to press banks too hard on behalf of Americans historically excluded from the financial system. And with Biden stressing racial inequities more forcefully than either Clinton or Obama did, they believe Barr can reinvigorate the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, Washington’s most powerful lever to channel more investment into low-income neighborhoods, after Donald Trump’s administration pushed through regulations that weakened it.
“He would be the most progressive comptroller in my lifetime, and maybe in history,” says Jesse Van Tol, the chief executive officer of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Barr has led “cutting-edge efforts to promote community development, to address under-invested communities, and to address the racial wealth divide. And in a time period when these things were not, as they are now, top of mind, I think Michael Barr has shown that kind of commitment.”
