Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) officially opened its doors in Washington, making it the first major new federal agency in nearly 10 years. Americans should take notice, and they ought to be concerned. Heritage’s Diane Katz explains in The Daily Caller that the sheer scope of the agency’s power–and its lack of accountability–poses concerns for every American:
This is a regulatory agency with unparalleled powers, including consolidated and expanded regulatory authority over credit and debit cards, mortgages, student loans, savings and checking accounts, and most every other consumer financial product and service. Essentially, all consumers’ money falls under bureau purview unless it’s under a mattress.
The good news is that, at least for the time being, the Agency cannot exercise the full extent of its powers because it does not yet have a director. But Katz says the CFPB is not entirely impotent, and Congress should act to rein-in its authority:
With a battalion of bureaucrats at the ready, and a budget of $500 million, the CFPB is busily gathering intelligence on most every type of financial firm and preparing regulatory sorties under existing laws.
Other flaws surrounding the CFPB abound, including weak oversight by the Financial Stability Oversight Council as well as new burdens the CFPB will impose on financialinstitutions and their customers–thereby increasing risks to the financial system.
Read more of Katz’s op-ed, “Reining in the CFPB,” at The Daily Caller.
Another total waste of $500 million plus. How many agencies already do this? 5 6, 7. What is their job or purpose, NOBODY KNOWS, not important. CAN't we get Congress to kill before it wastes all.
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In a time where we need to cut the size and scope of government to reduce zero out the deficit and start reducing the national debt, and moreover start helping to ge the economy going, we put in one more Marxist agency populated with more overpaid federal workers working hard against the American will.
The federal government is out of control.
Another person who thinks shrinking the national debt should always start by cutting consumer-oriented (read: citizens, voters) programs! $500 is small change in today’s economy. How about stopping the real big-time hemorrhage of our nation’s money-the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Don’t blame Obama for still being a nation at war. Only Congress has the authority to end the war. Sure, the president has defacto-given powers, but how much or how small such powers depends on the political climate, and most important, who controls both house of Congress, especially the U.S. Senate!
Every new government agency will eventually grow and grow. This new federal agency is yet another way to choke out the freedom in this country and drain we the people of more money.