PrintTrump cracks the whip on leftwing CFPB
One of the most out-of-control federal agencies, the zero-accountability, zero-budget-constraints Consumer Protection Financial Bureau. is finally looking at efforts to rein it in, courtesy of the Trump administration.
In a story that ran in today's Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON—The Trump administration wants to limit a federal regulator’s independence in policing the consumer-finance industry, the latest salvo by the White House to roll back Obama-era oversight put in place after the financial crisis.
Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on Monday asked Congress to pursue sweeping changes giving the executive and legislative branches control over the bureau’s regulations, leadership and budget. Major CFPB rules would need congressional approval, for instance, and the CFPB’s director would answer directly to the president, instead of being fully independent. Its funding, which currently comes from the Federal Reserve, would be handled by Congress.
The changes would be a substantial departure from the CFPB’s structure, which currently gives it wide latitude to oversee consumer financial products without interference from Congress or the White House, and make it less independent than other banking and markets regulators.
“The bureau is far too powerful, and with precious little oversight of its activities,” Mr. Mulvaney said in a report on the CFPB sent to Congress. Supporters counter the bureau was set up after the financial crisis to be insulated from politics.
Independence? That's a laugh. There's not a thing independent about this Democratic Party slush fund that operates with an unlimited budget, courtesy of the Federal Reserve and its capacity to actually print money.
Here's what I found earlier about this of-the-Democrats, by-the-Democrats, for-the-Democrats leftwing agency:
The Democrats under President Obama designed the agency first conceived by Elizabeth Warren so that it would be nominally independent and nominally bipartisan. and of course, be solely devoted to looking out for consumers. In reality, CFPB is unaccountable to the voters and their elected leaders, with its funding under the purview of the Federal Reserve, which is independent itself, instead of the Congress.Then its creators designed the agency so that no Republican could ever enter it. Rubin writes:Over the next two years, the economy collapsed, Democrats gained control of Congress and the White House, and Warren grew famous criticizing big banks in congressional hearings. She lobbied Democrats to include her agency in their Wall Street–reform legislation, arguing that effective enforcement of consumer-protection laws required a regulator independent from politicians beholden to the financial industry. The Democrats had a better idea: They would make her agency independent from Republicans.Rubin describes how the agency systematically discriminated against Republican hires through wink and nod hiring processes and got away with it.
Operationally, they were horrible, too. It took local regulatory agencies and a long Los Angeles Times investigative piece to expose the massive opening of unwanted accounts of consumers by Wells Fargo employees back in 2013. After all the work was done, CFPB came in and fined Wells Fargo, which was loaded with Democrat donors, the $100 million it got headlines for, ignoring that the agency actually didn't do anything to uncover the bad case of abuse against customers. They weren't in the business of protecting customers, they were just about shakedowns and publicity, as Rubin described.And that cash they extracted goes solely to Democrat groups.IBD writes:Now, a little-noticed item on the CFPB's website reveals the powerful new agency is launching its own scheme to provide backdoor funding for nonprofit urban groups politically aligned with Democrats.
