Opposing view: Put a bipartisan commission in charge of bureau
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) mission is far too vast and far too important for a single director to play both judge and jury for nearly every financial decision Americans make. The bureau has grown to 1,700 employees with an annual budget of more than a half billion dollars.
And some believe its director has the authority to unilaterally name an acting successor without a hearing or confirmation — something that has thrown the bureau into a totally avoidable legal donnybrook, tarnishing the agency and distracting from its mission.
Regardless of who heads the CFPB temporarily, a sole director at the CFPB is unworkable. Congress needs to fix it with legislation to create a bipartisan, Senate-confirmed commission.
A commission provides long-term stability, preventing the bureau from swinging like a pendulum with each new director. Other financial regulators — the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve — are commissions or boards where the majority rules. And all have undergone or are undergoing seamless leadership changes without lawsuits or confusion.
For Americans seeking a mortgage or opening a bank account, there is nothing more important than ensuring the agency tasked with protecting them operates effectively. A bipartisan commission of experts directing and formulating policy would accomplish this, ensuring consumers receive a balanced, deliberative, transparent and thoughtful approach to regulations.
Some say that the commission structure comes with its own set of problems. No leadership structure is perfect, but you have to ask which is better for consumers: a group of people with diverse viewpoints listening to both sides regardless of who is in the White House, or a sole director with a one-sided ideological agenda. The latter sets up a situation where each director simply reverses what has been done at the agency over the previous five years.
This kind of uncertainty hurts consumers, small businesses and our economy.