New CFPB Mission Statement Focuses on Lifting Rules on Banks
Mick Mulvaney, the “acting head” of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, changed the CFPB mission statement. The CFPB was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which had exposed the absence of rules for financial companies. Under previous Director Richard Cordray, the CFPB helped reestablish basic, fair rules of the road in the financial sector. Now, the mission statement expresses a desire to eliminate these rules – which are in place to protect consumers and prevent another economic crash.
The mission statements appear with CFPB press releases.
Before Mulvaney: “The CFPB is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives.”
Now with Mulvaney: “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by regularly identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations, by making rules more effective, by consistently enforcing federal consumer financial law, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives.”
Additional Background
“Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney, a month into his job moonlighting as head the CFPB, has rewritten the consumer watchdog’s mission statement. In a nutshell, the regulatory agency is now a deregulatory agency.” [Lorraine Woellert, “Morning Money: That’s a wrap on 2017,” Politico, 12/22/17.]
“If you’ve been wondering how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will change now that President Trump has installed as interim director a man who has called the agency a ‘sick, sad joke,’ wonder no more…. Consumer advocates say Mulvaney’s marching orders from Trump are clear: Remake the CFPB as a federal agency that’s a consumer watchdog in name only.” [David Lazarus, “For Trump’s man at consumer agency, emphasis is on ditching rules, not enforcing them,” LA Times, 12/22/17]
Mulvaney “has perverted the agency’s mandate from protecting the public from scammers and cheats to letting the worst, scammiest, cheatingest companies run roughshod over the public. Most emblematic of this was changing the CFPB’s mission statement to emphasize its commitment to deregulation.” [Catherine Rampell, “How Mick Mulvaney is dismantling a federal agency,” The Washington Post, 01/25/18.]