Richard Cordray may be running for governor in Ohio, but he left the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in shambles. More than 25 free-market organizations, including Americans for Tax Reform and FreedomWorks, have asked CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney to audit the agency’s finances.
Jason Pye, vice president at FreedomWorks, had the following to say: “Every aspect related to the CFPB should be put on the table, and what we can do through administrative action, either through the audit process or whatever rollbacks we need to do, we should do it.”
For years, the agency escaped congressional oversight, unilaterally issuing broad regulations that overburdened employers and employees alike. Under Cordray’s watch, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit described the CFPB as “unconstitutionally structured” and a “gross departure from settled historical practice.” In U.S. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh words: The CFPB’s structure “poses a far greater risk of arbitrary decision making and abuse of power, and a far greater threat to individual liberty, than does a multi-member independent agency.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) even filed court papers asking a federal appeals court to order the restructuring of the CFPB. The DOJ argued that the agency’s structure came into a separation-of-powers issue, since Cordray wasn’t sufficiently answerable to the White House.
An audit is long overdue. It’s time to hold the CFPB accountable, and see where taxpayer money’s been going all these years.