This weekend I was up in Massachusetts visiting my in-laws. My mother-in-law is originally from New York and collects Statues of Liberty in every imaginable form. This includes tons of Statue of Liberty figurines, M&M dispensers, pillows, pens, greeting cards, mugs, masks, tote bags, Legos, earrings and a rubber duckie. She even has a plastic goose dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.

Everywhere you look in her house Lady Liberty looks back! In her defense, when people found out that she likes the Statue of Liberty, they gave her everyone they could find. (Just to be clear, she did not purchase the goose!)  

My mother-in-law is a first-generation German immigrant, whose parents escaped pre-war Germany, came in through Ellis Island, and settled in the Bronx. One year, we visited Ellis Island and found her parents’ names on their list.

The United States immigration story is much different today. The 2020 census data is expected to come out soon and will reflect our changing demographics with many cities having shrunk in terms of population. The Washington Post did a nice synopsis on some of these trends, and I think it is worth a read.
 
A few other things to note this week:
 
The Crown: The Honorable Todd Harper, current NCUA Chairman, was nominated to a second term by President Biden last week.  NCUA Board members can only serve one term unless they fill out an unexpired term, which is what occurred here. Board member Rodney Hood’s term is up in 2023, and Vice Chairman Hauptman is just beginning his tenure this year. 

So, the Republicans will keep their majority on the NCUA Board until 2023. Chairman Harper has a consumer protection agenda and is seeking third-party vendor authority and changes to the share insurance fund to allow the NCUA to hold more money in the fund.  You can find more on that here in my video recap of legislative and regulatory issues that deserve every credit union's attention.
 
The Torch: The CFPB, sort of, shined a light on an issue that popped up on the compliance front, when Juneteenth was made a national holiday. The CFPB statement notes that the legislation signed on June 17, 2021 specifically added Juneteenth to the list of “legal public holidays,” meaning that the “specific” definition of “business day” will exclude June 19th of each year from the business day calculation, as it already does for July 4th and other federal holidays. Many credit unions may still have questions regarding how this holiday should be treated for mortgage transactions that occurred around June 19th of this year. Please feel free to reach out to our compliance hotline if you have any questions.
 
The Tablet: While many of us were hopeful this past Fourth of July, that perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic was behind us, the spread of the Delta variant is proving that we may have celebrated a bit too soon. Thankfully, because the vaccines available prevent hospitalization and deaths in most cases, we are not without tools to combat this pandemic this time around. League events are still occurring as planned with our next event the CONNECT Conference for emerging credit union professionals being held Sept. 27-29 in downtown Richmond. If we change any of our events to hybrid or completely virtual models, we will be sure to let you know. 

While things are not where we had hoped they would be by now, we are pleased to see many credit unions continuing to do their part to get us out of this pandemic by encouraging vaccinations. 
 
The Feet: Today, the U.S. Senate passed a comprehensive infrastructure bill which is now headed to the U.S. House of Representatives, where it may face an even longer and more difficult road to passage. The Democrats have also unveiled their budget bill - a $3.5 trillion package - which includes no mention of the debt ceiling. The Democrats have two options - (1) push their package through on a party-line vote, including raising the debt ceiling or (2) try to achieve a compromise package with the Republicans. 

Why is this so important?  Congress must pass legislation to raise the ceiling, or the U.S. Government will become insolvent resulting in subsequent defaults that will have worldwide economic ramifications. Hopefully, Congress will not have two left feet or lay a goose egg this time around.


 
Sincerely,
 
Carrie Hunt
President/CEO

P.S. How do you Credit Union?  I would love to hear from you.  Always feel free to shoot me a note or call.