(VitalNews.org) – A bill introduced on Thursday, April 27th by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Byron Donalds (R-FL) Mike Lee (R-UT), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), John Barrasso (R-WY), and Rand Paul, (R-KY) called the Repeal CFPB Act is an effort to close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Cruz initially attempted to repeal the CFPB in 2015.
The CFPB was formed following the financial crisis and Recession of 2008 and intended to serve as a watchdog for the financial sector. According to the CFPB website, the bureau was created to hold the government accountable by “consolidating consumer financial protection authorities that had existed across seven different federal agencies into one.”
Sen. Cruz, a ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said “The CFPB is an utter and complete waste of government spending and should be eliminated. It is entirely ineffective and does very little to protect consumers.”
“The only purpose of this sham, Obama-mandated organization is to stifle economic growth by enforcing burdensome, unnecessary economic regulations,” Cruz said in a statement. “The last thing our economy needs under Bidenflation is further hindrance by government bureaucrats. Ending the CFPB will spur economic growth at a time when Texans and Americans sorely need it.”
In February 2023 the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments about the constitutional validity of the CFPB after a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the mechanism behind the funding of CFPB is unconstitutional, a victory for the finance industry.
The Supreme Court also ruled that a provision in the agency’s structure, a single director that can only be terminated with cause by the president, instead of at will, violated the separation of powers under the Constitution.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D. Mass.) first proposed the CFPB in 2007 when she was a professor at Harvard Law School. Former President Obama appointed Warren as a White House advisor and tasked her with heading oversight in forming the CFPB that ultimately came into being in 2010.
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