Republican lawmakers have taken aim at the CFPB, accusing the organization of having excessive power with no checks or balances
Republican lawmakers have taken aim at the CFPB, accusing the organization of having excessive power with no checks or balances.
Committee on Financial Services chair Jeb Hensarling, in a blog post of the Committee's website, has lambasted the CFPB as "the single most powerful and least accountable federal agency in American history."
The Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee will hold a hearing this week to discuss legislative proposals to reform the CFPB, and Hensarling has claimed the CFPB has a disproportionate amount of power.
"Unaccountable to Congress, we see that the CFPB eludes even the power of the president. The bureau's director, once appointed and confirmed, can only be removed by the nation's chief executive for cause. And don't count on the president to enforce spending discipline or regulatory restraint at the CFPB; the bureau is neither subject to the Office of Management and Budget nor the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs."
Hensarling's blog post has lamented what he called the bureau's "shocking lack of judicial oversight", and claimed that CFPB director Richard Cordray has been vested with too much power.
"Be he our credit czar, national nanny or benevolent financial product dictator, the CFPB director's authority is unilateral, unbridled and unparalleled. Without the check of a bipartisan commission, the director can declare virtually any financial product or service as ‘unfair’ or ‘abusive,’ at which point Americans will be denied that product or service even if they need it, understand it and want it."
