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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau remains "the most out-of-control, unaccountable, and nontransparent agency in the federal government... And we can say that without reservation because this is one of the only agencies that literally operates outside of congressional oversight," added Wise, whose Virgina-based organization "works to protect consumers' right to access free-market goods and services." The CFPB, created under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, is funded largely by fees banks pay to the Federal Reserve. While its director, Richard Cordray, has bragged that his bureau has levied more than $141 million in fines used for CFPB education programs or reparation to...

At least some Democrats are resisting Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s purge of the liberal intelligentsia. This week Ms. Warren succeeded in forcing the resignation of respected scholar Robert Litan from the Brookings Institution after he revealed that a new Labor Department regulation could cost investors billions. Now five Democratic economists have authored a letter to protest Warren’s bullying. Robert Lawrence of Harvard’s Kennedy School and Bowman Cutter of the Roosevelt Institute are among those writing “to express our concern over our colleague Bob Litan’s treatment at the hands of the Brookings Institution and Senator Elizabeth Warren.” Also signing the letter are...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency designed to purposely avoid oversight from Congress, with much fanfare recently introduced a public database cataloging all of the complaints it has received from consumers. “Consumer complaints are the CFPB’s compass and play a central role in everything we do. They help us identify and prioritize problems for potential action,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a press release announcing the new public database. The only problem? The database shows complaints about “payday lenders,” which are currently in Cordray's cross hairs, composed less than one percent of all complaints, far outnumbered...

When a government agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is created by Congress, one would expect that a few consumers could actually receive protection, but that hasn’t been the case with this agency’s track record of mismanagement, inefficiency and waste. The CFPB has been operating for four years now and if it were a sports team, its coach, Richard Cordray, would certainly be looking for work. CFPB was created as part of a Washington law known as “Dodd-Frank” – named for sponsors former Sen. Christopher Dodd and former Rep. Barney Frank. When CFPB director Cordray announced the laudable...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which celebrated its fourth birthday earlier this week, won’t see its fifth birthday if Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, has his way. Cruz, along with Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-TX, introduced a bill in Congress this week that would abolish the CFPB, an agency that Cruz says does not stand up to its name. “Don't let the name fool you, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does little to protect consumer,” Cruz said in a release. “The agency continues to grow in power and magnitude without any accountability to Congress and the people,” Cruz continued. “The only way...

Housing: If you need federal subsidies to pay your apartment rent, it's a good bet you can't afford to buy a new home. But don't tell that to the Obama regime. It's pressuring banks to lend even to Section 8 voucher recipients. In a new regulatory bulletin, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns home lenders that they can be investigated for discrimination if they reject Section 8 vouchers as a valid source of income for low-income minorities applying for mortgages. The agency argues that underwriting policies that exclude such welfare payments could have a "disparate impact" on minority borrowers and...

Tony Pierce’s May 5 column, “CFPB Must Prioritize People Over Payday Lenders”, drips with unintended irony, for the CFPB never actually visited any stores or talked directly with borrowers (i.e. people) to learn what actually goes on in the trenches.To review, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently released its proposed rules for short-term small dollar loans, often known as payday loans and auto title loans. Despite the bureau’s repeated insistence that it recognizes the need for such products in the marketplace, its prescription to “eliminate debt traps” is akin to treating dandruff by decapitation. The proposed rules indeed accomplish only...

When I came to Washington years ago, I had a revolutionary glimmer in my eye. I hated big government and I wanted to join a political movement to dismantle it. That was a long time ago, yet sometimes that rage kicks in when I read about the creeping socialism that is slowly destroying America.The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put out a study today titled “Ten Thousand Commandments – An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.” The results will make you spitting mad.The author Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy at CEI, found that federal regulation cost $1.88 trillion in...

Remember those 15 people who refused to repay their federal student loans? Their “debt strike” has picked up 85 more disgruntled borrowers willing to jeopardize their financial future to pressure the government into forgiving their student loans. And the government is starting to listen. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has invited the group to Washington on Tuesday to discuss their demand for debt cancellation. Although the CFPB doesn’t have the power to grant that request, the agency’s overture shows that the strike is being taken seriously. It’s been a month since 15 former students of the failing for-profit giant Corinthian...

In 2008, the nation entered into a financial crisis widely believed to have been caused by excesses in the residential mortgage industry. By 2010, the nation thought it had put in place a series of measures that not only would resolve the crisis but would insure that it never happened again. Yet, here we are in 2015 looking at another potential mortgage crisis. Only this time it is different. In 2008, funds flowed in waves into the mortgage industry. In 2015, it appears the funds are drying up. The solutions to the problem in 2010 and thereafter included: Suing and...

Renovation costs for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Washington headquarters continue to spiral upwards, now pegged at $215.8 million, according to the inspector general of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The scathing report authored by IG Mark Bialek said there is no “sound basis” to support the controversial renovation. Unlike Congress, the Fed's IG can review CFPB programs and spending. "The approval of funding for the renovation was not in accordance with the CFPB’s current policies for major investments,” and as a result, “a sound business case is not available to support the funding of the renovation,” he said....

It’s great to have Uncle Sam looking out for the little guy, isn’t it? That’s why it was such a super-duper, nifty idea for Washington to summon into being the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It was created as part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act back in 2010, but was originally the brainstorm of now Senator Elizabeth Warren. (You may recall she was initially slated to head the agency, but that was derailed by Congress.) So now that they are on the job, keeping citizens safe from big banking fat cats and ensuring financial responsibility...

Last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, through the power of Dodd-Frank, passed a rule giving the agency unprecedented power to shut down businesses, no matter what the reason, at any time it wishes through a cease-and-desist order. Further, the rule puts businesses at the mercy of the CFPB and they cannot go back into operation until government approval or a court ruling is made over an issue. Subsequently because bureaucratic decisions and court rulings take a substantial amount of time to happen, businesses cannot survive during those waiting periods. Here are the details (bolding is mine):

Last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, through the power of Dodd-Frank, passed a rule giving the agency unprecedented power to shut down businesses, no matter what the reason, at any time it wishes through a cease-and-desist order. Further, the rule puts businesses at the mercy of the CFPB and they cannot go back into operation until government approval or a court ruling is made over an issue. Subsequently because bureaucratic decisions and court rulings take a substantial amount of time to happen, businesses cannot survive during those waiting periods. Here are the details (bolding is mine):

As many as 227 million Americans may be compelled to disclose intimate details of their families and financial lives -- including their Social Security numbers -- in a new national database being assembled by two federal agencies. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy. Sign Up for the Watchdog newsletter! FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning...

One government agency has decided that the results of employee ratings are too discriminatory, and eliminated the process entirely. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Monday that it will now award all employees the highest rating regardless of performance reviews. The CFPB, which oversees transactions in the financial sector for the federal government, decided to no longer conduct employee reviews because there were just too many apparent “significant disparities” between the races, ages, and locations of its employees. According to American Banker, this new policy is set to cost over $5 million dollars, as it will now pay employees...

"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday said it would distribute extra compensation to employees who received lower performance rankings after a review determined the regulator consistently gave higher performance rankings to whites, younger employees and higher-paid workers."

Oversight: Congress and some others in the media finally see the urgency in reining in Obama's rogue, out-of-control, unaccountable and secretive Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is something we have urged since its inception. In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act gave birth to what we have argued is the single most powerful and least accountable agency in Washington. CFPB has the power to police virtually every financial transaction in the economy. Yet it holds its meetings in secret, has no inspector general and is funded outside the normal congressional budget process. On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will take up...

Power Struggle: CFPB Director Richard Cordray has snubbed yet another congressional request to disclose information about the shady methods he's using to investigate auto lenders for discrimination. Early last month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling formally asked Cordray to explain how it is he can sue Ally Bank and other car lenders for policies that allegedly have a "disparate impact" on minorities when the industry doesn't even ID borrowers by race and investigators would have to guess their minority status. Then Hensarling pressed him for the metric he's using to determine a "statistically significant disparity" in loan pricing...

The liberal dictatorship of Richard Cordray at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) came under fire this week when the head of the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) called for the agency to open up its four advisory council meetings to the public and press. “Instead of operating behind closed doors, it’s time for the CFPB to live up to its oft-stated commitment to transparency and openness ... Wielding the power of the Dodd-Frank law, the CFPB has become an instrument for liberal tyranny focused against banks, mortgage companies, realtors, and other consumer credit professionals. The agency has been holding...