Consumer advocates are up in arms over a budget amendment, approved Thursday by the Senate Budget Committee, that would end the independent funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and instead bring it under the congressional appropriations process.
Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also plans to vote next week on H.R. 1105, The Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015, which would repeal the estate tax. However, such a measure would likely be vetoed by President Barack Obama, who supports higher estate taxes.
Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, introduced the CFPB funding amendment Thursday to the Senate's 2015 Budget Resolution, stating that the "reckless" CFPB was "spawned from the disastrous Dodd-Frank financial regulation law," and that CFPB is "a rogue agency that dishes out malicious financial policy and creates new rules and regulations without any oversight from Congress."
Furthermore, argued Perdue, a freshman senator who has been CEO of several major companies including Reebok, "the agency itself has failed to operate within its own budget and proven it is more concerned with preserving its own power than protecting the public."
The CFPB currently gets its funding from and operates under the Federal Reserve and is "unaccountable to Congress," Perdue said.
Dodd-Frank established the CFPB's budget at as much as 12% of the Fed's annual operating expense. "That is roughly $600 million without any Congressional oversight over the agency's functions," Perdue stated.
