House Kneecaps Wall Street Reform Funding, But Goal is Worse

WASHINGTON, Mar. 1 – New In the Public Interest column today on The Huffington Post by Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG).

“When Congress established the CFPB, it specifically insulated the CFPB’s budget authority from Congressional and special-interest meddling, by making its funding not an appropriation but a transfer from the independently-funded Federal Reserve. Not to worry, the House used dubious rules it wrote itself to cut the CFPB budget from $143 million to $80 million anyway. If the House action stands, the CFPB would be the only federal bank regulator subject to political budget cuts. By the way, kingpin Jamie Dimon’s take for the last three years? About $84 million.

“Let’s hope what happened in the House stays in the House” Mierzwinski writes.