In an op-ed published today in the Detroit News, George Washington University School of Business professor Jeffrey H. Joseph made the case that the CFPB is just another bloated federal bureaucracy that deserves close scrutiny from the 114th Congress.
Joseph said that the CFPB has fallen victim to “mission creep,” pointing to the CFPB’s attempt to regulate car dealerships (even though it’s explicitly prohibited from doing so) as evidence. Using allegations of racial discrimination, the CFPB recently compelled a financial company to pay nearly $100 million in penalties. However, an analysis “concluded that CFPB’s charge of racial discrimination is not supported by data.”
Why would the CFPB apply apply faulty statistical models in an attempt to find discrimination? “As the adage goes, follow the money,” Joseph wrote. “The CFPB keeps the money from penalties that it extracts via enforcement actions — a blatant conflict of interest.”
Read the full op-ed here.