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Today in Washington, D.C. - Dec. 7, 2011:
House passed HR 2471, passed (303-116) to ease a 1988 law barring disclosure of movie-rental history without a customer's written permission.
Yesterday, the Senate blocked (54-45) the confirmation of controversial DC Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Caitlin Halligan.
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also filed cloture on the nomination of former Democrat Attorney General of Ohio, Richard Cordray, to head the unaccountable CFPB, created by the Dodd-Frank law. A cloture vote is likely tomorrow or Friday. Forty-five Republican senators have said they will oppose any nominee to head CFPB until significant changes are made to the agency to bring some transparency and accountability to it. A cloture vote is likely Thursday or Friday.
Reid is expected today to file cloture on Democrats’ latest payroll tax extension bill, S. 1744. Yet again, the bill includes a permanent tax hike to pay for temporary relief.
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| Dodd-Frank Pix Flipped By Popular Demand |
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell detailed the basic problem with this CFPB appointment: “[T]he Director of the CFPB, by design, is set to lead one of the least accountable and most powerful agencies in Washington. What we're saying is no single person who's unaccountable to the American people should have that much power. We are asking for the same structure as the SEC, the CFTC, and the FDIC, the FTC, the NLRB, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission — the same structure we use anytime we give unelected bureaucrats new powers that need to be checked to protect against abuse. … We don't need any more unelected, unaccountable czars in Washington.”
Forty-five GOP senators have signed a letter to President Obama saying they won’t confirm any director for the CFPB until some key reforms of the agency are put in place. Among the reforms Republicans call for in their letter are to “Establish a board of directors to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. . . . Subject the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the [Congressional] appropriations process. . . . [And e]stablish a safety-and-soundness check for the prudential regulators.”
The Hilladds, “Republicans on Tuesday insisted they would block Cordray’s confirmation in the procedural vote unless the White House agrees to significant changes to the agency’s framework. 'Allowing the bureau to be funded by the Fed gives it a ‘funding stream that’s completely unique in government, entirely without a check from the American people … making it one of the least transparent agencies in Washington,’ Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said at the news conference. . . . Senate Banking Committee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said the changes are needed ‘to prevent this from being a completely runaway, unaccountable agency, which is exactly the way it was crafted to be.’ . . . ‘It makes no sense for a structure to be created, no matter how noble the cause may be, where there is simply no accountability, no oversight for the budget,’ Collins said.”
As Sen. Shelby said in May, “This is about accountability. The Bureau, as currently structured, lacks any semblance of the checks and balances inherent in the Constitution. Everyone supports consumer protection, but we should never entrust a single person with this much power and public money. We are simply asking the President to support common sense reforms that provide the accountability absent in the current structure.”
Tags: Washington, D.C. US House, U.S. Senate, Dood-Frank Czar, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, no accountability, unlimited funding To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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