It’s no surprise that Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren is fighting SCOTUS tooth and nail to save her beloved Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That’s because it was specifically designed as a slush fund for Democrats.
SCOTUS checks the Constitution
SCOTUS is finally putting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the microscope to examine whether it’s actually Constitutional or not. In the Trump era, Mick Mulvaney quickly discovered that it has way more power than any one agency should wield. He also figured out that protecting the public is only a smoke and mirrors disguise. The public gets pennies of the dollars they recover. The rest goes into what amounts to a slush fund.
It can be used for anything whoever controls it wants. Democrats always expected that to be them. When they lost control of it to Trump, Mulvaney had to pry his predecessor out of his desk chair with a legal crowbar because they thought they had their own separate little transfer of power scheme written in.
That didn’t hold up in court. Those challenges which started popping up in 2017 are only now making their way into the halls of supreme justice. SCOTUS can now take the good squint at the beast which Republicans have been begging for years. Democrats are terrified.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau originally dreamed up by Sen. Elizabeth Warren has long been a target for Republicans and the financial industry.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a case that could crush the agency. https://t.co/5F2aXla707
— Axios (@axios) October 2, 2023
The see the case as “part of a broad-based attack on the regulatory state by Republicans.” That’s because they know how shady the CFPB really is.
Even Politico knows it’s a plum for progressives. “Democrats who created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a decade ago,” they write, “thought they could shield the agency from political pressure by funding it through the Federal Reserve instead of Congress.” Democrats see nothing wrong with that. There’s no potential for abuse or anything. SCOTUS already knows that doesn’t look good.
“That decision, which drew condemnation from GOP lawmakers and has helped make the regulator a lightning rod for attacks ever since, is facing its biggest test Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments on its constitutionality.”
Curbing the agency’s power
Liberals, especially Pocahontas, are in panic mode because SCOTUS could end up “curbing the agency’s power.” It has way too much of that, Republicans insist. Not only could a decision throw it’s own rules into question, it could “affect other regulators throughout the government — including the Fed and the FDIC — that are also not funded by annual congressional spending bills.”
That’s why Warren set it up that way. She can’t defend it’s funding scheme so instead emphasizes the good to the American public. “The CFPB has returned $17 billion directly to Americans cheated by financial institutions,” she said in a statement. “If the Supreme Court disregards over a century of legal precedent, it risks undermining banking regulators safeguarding our economy, as well as Social Security and Medicare.”
She doesn’t mention that means many billions more flowed into the program that didn’t flow back out to the public. Most of it is earmarked for “educating” the public about what the CFPB does. Before Mick Mulvaney came around, it was used to fund Barack Obama’s friends in the media business. SCOTUS will be looking into that real hard.
Hold on to your hat! SCOTUS kicks off oral arguments with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services, potentially threatening the federal agency that protects Americans from unlawful financial services.#DemsAbroad#VoteFromAbroadhttps://t.co/khmf7t4wPP
— Democrats Abroad (@DemsAbroad) October 3, 2023
“Warren, who is credited with conceiving the agency that was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis before she became a senator, said the CFPB’s political independence was critical to its formation.” The last thing they wanted was regulators breathing down their necks and peeking at the books.
Republicans say that’s sneaky and illegal. Financial industry critics join them in opposing the bureau, arguing that “the funding scheme allows the agency to escape accountability.”
Back in 2017, SCOTUS scrapped an EPA ruling and noted “that the CFPB was unconstitutionally funded when it adopted the regulation. The ruling held that the agency’s self-determined budget drawn from an agency that is itself not funded by appropriations marked a ‘double insulation from Congress’ purse strings,‘ a unique setup even among financial regulators.“
