Fordham Law Professor Susan Block-Lieb voiced concerns over the House Financial Services Committee’s proposed cuts to funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and joined others in urging Congress to reject attempts to gut consumer protections.
Susan Block-Lieb, Fordham Law School, New York:
“The CFPB was created as an independent agency precisely because Congress understood how unpopular a strong CFPB would be with banks (big and small), non-bank lenders who push payday loans and car title pawns, financial service providers, and the lobbyists who “protect” these financial interests. But guess what: The CFPB has been hugely popular with the ordinary Americans these lobbyists work against.
The Trump Administration and DOGE didn’t understand or care how popular the CFPB has been with ordinary Americans. They don’t seem to understand or care that their efforts to ‘cancel’ the CFPB with a chain-saw wouldn’t work because Congress created the CFPB and only Congress can change that.
The House Financial Services Committee is similarly ignorant and indifferent. It views the House Budget Reconciliation process as an ‘easy way’ to cut the funding of the CFPB. But this ignores not just the Consumer Financial Protection Act, enacted in 2010. It also ignores CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association (2024) – a 7-2 decision of the Supreme Court (written by Justice Clarence Thomas), which upheld the CFPB’s financial independence as constitutional. The Appropriations Clause in Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires only that Congress identify the source of public funding and authorize its expenditure for a designated purpose. The CFPA did just this by identifying the Federal Reserve (not annual congressional appropriations) as the CFPB’s source of funding.
You can’t just wave a magic wand to make the CFPB go away.”