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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   35143 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Here's another Sunday evening squeeze. We've heard below about Congressional appropriations and the anti-impoundment act, but did you know that the CFPB doesn't have a specific appropriation from the treasury.

Yes, you're right -- no one appropriates the CFPB's budget. Rather, and I'm not joking, the Federal Reserve transfers to the CFPB the amount determined by the Director to be reasonably necessary to carry out the authorities of the Bureau up to some cap.

The Supreme Court said this is legal -- Congress passed a law appropriating the money and they don't have to specify a particular dollar amount to count as satisfying the Constitution's command that "[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”. There's some nice Founding-era history in the decision which seems convincing (or at least defensible) .

So in exercise of that confirmed power and seemingly in a fully legal fashion, the just-confirmed director said

Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not "reasonably necessary" to carry out its duties. The Bureau's current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment.

Quite amusing and a fairly good use of the law.

Note that recently the CFPB has been acting like an agency in search of a purpose, going after "nonbank entities" such as Google.

Tbf "Google wallet" etc. does blur the line between tech company and bank.

It's pretty common for financial regulators not to be appropriated. That keeps wealthy Bank lobby groups from lobbying congress for looser regulation (financial forms are one of the biggest lobby groups by budget).

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/ranked-sectors

But they could still allow Congress to pass laws, limiting the CFPB.

And now they found themselves in an even worse situation where bank interests only have to confirm one director through Congress in order to completely torch the agency.

Yeah it's the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket is great until the guy you least wanted gets to choose the next basket holder and picks someone who doesn't like any of the eggs.

That type of legal jiu-jitsu appears to be a major feature of the current administration's approach to regulatory matters, i.e. the repurposing of the Obama-era U.S. Digital Service into Musk's U.S. Doge Service.

Except it isn't working. The judges are slapping on injunctions based on a more strict reading of the Constitution and laws. Obama can create the U.S. Digital Service, but Trump can't use it.

one judge has slapped on an injunction. We will see what the ultimate result is.

It is/was typical for the Obama-era style of executive governance to set up things in ways that lacked the congressional buy-in to protect them from changes down the line. Very much a mix of 'we will continue to win, so it won't matter,' mixed with 'I dare anyone to pay the political costs of trying to change it afterwards.'

In theory, it was supposed to be a ratchet. In practice, they did not continue to win, and a consequence of using a party-state to undermine a political opponent from within the executive bureaucracy is that they have much higher baked-in political costs regardless.

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