The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency meant to protect consumers from predatory lending and unfair business practices would see its funding completely wiped out by 2019 under the President’s latest budget proposal. Nearly $6.4 billion in cuts under the new budget would come from the agency.
The director of the Office of Management and Budget, the office largely responsible for formulating the President’s budget, Mick Mulvaney, criticized the CFPB in documents supporting the budget for financial mismanagement. Mulvaney also described the bureau’s ability to draw funds from the Fed as giving it “unchecked authority.” The comments are noteworthy because Mulvaney is also the current director of the CFPB.
Mulvaney was appointed to run the agency last November, after former director Richard Cordray left the bureau. In the time that Mulvaney’s been in charge, the agency’s efforts and pace of actions against companies has slowed. Conservatives have generally opposed the agency since it was created as part of the post-financial crash Dodd-Frank reform law of 2010.