Data dispute
September 30, 2010 | Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (1)A blistering op-ed about Elizabeth Warren’s use of data today:
The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the most powerful bureaucratic positions ever created in the American political system. It can regulate or ban almost every consumer credit product in the country, yet it is beyond Congress’s power of the purse because its budget is guaranteed as a percentage of the Fed’s annual revenues. Under normal circumstances, the Senate would have the opportunity to ask Ms. Warren to explain the way in which she has sometimes interpreted data in her research before entrusting her with control of the agency.
By doing an end-run around the confirmation process, the Obama administration has eliminated our opportunity to find out. And by installing the head of the agency as an assistant to the president inside the White House, it has insulated her from meaningful congressional oversight.
Comments»
She has such an important job! We can’t afford to just wait around for congress. Those republicans will just say no. That’s all they can do, after all.
Presto: consumer finance czar!
Just in time to save the day. The dear leader is so good and generous to protect us. I shall go and write him another hymn.