Mick Mulvaney, former member of Congress, now heading up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) just forced an epidemic of fainting in our nation’s capital.
CFPB, an independent agency. does not receive its funding from Congress, but from the Federal Reserve. Every quarter, the agency is supposed to request operating funds from the Fed. Last quarter, the former director, Richard Cordray, an Obama appointee, asked for $271 million. The previous quarter, Director Cordray requested $86 million.
Yesterday, Mulvaney sent his first budget request to the Fed. Let’s just say that a lot of smelling salts were needed to revive official Washington.
He requested zero.
In a letter to Fed Chair Janet Yellen obtained by Politico, Mulvaney wrote that the bureau has $177 million in the bank, enough to cover the $145 million the bureau has budgeted for its second quarter. Cordray had maintained a “reserve fund” in case of overruns or emergencies, but Mulvaney said he didn’t see any reason for it, since the Fed has always given the bureau the money it needs. Mulvaney, who is also Trump’s budget director, noted that instead of advancing the funds to the bureau, the Fed could return them to the Treasury and reduce the deficit.
“While this approximately $145 million may not make much of a dent in the deficit, the men and women at the Bureau are proud to do their part to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Mulvaney wrote.
Common sense versus the…