Memo to Russell Vought
On His New Part-Time Job
Congratulations on your appointment as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau! Adding this responsibility to your day job as Director of the Office of Management and Budget shows a devotion to duty second to none. I know that your accession to the CFPB Acting Directorship will be a relief to your predecessor, Treasury Secretary Bessant, who has plenty to say grace over in managing our national debt. But wait — wasn’t that your job at OMB? Or is it Elon Musk’s job? In a government as complex as ours, it is comforting to know that you are on top of things. (Or is it Musk?)
Your accession to office will, I know, be a source of joy to your predecessor Kathy Kraninger, who prepared the way for you by giving up the CFPB’s status as an independent agency without a fight during the first Trump Presidency. In fact, Ms. Kraninger had the Solicitor General file a brief in support of a debt restructuring operation’s certiorari petition based on the unconstitutionality of single director agencies after the CFPB had won on that issue at the trial and federal appellate level. Talk about reinventing government!
While I know you are anxious to continue in the Kraninger tradition of innovation, I would respectfully suggest that you take care in how you proceed. As a strict constructionist of the Constitution, it seems to me that the President’s Article II powers, on which your status is based, is pretty clear: [the President] shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Kraninger’s surrender was based on the theory that the CFPB Director’s independence undermined that Presidential power. So far so good, but the CFPB was established and currently exists under a statute (Law for this purpose) validly enacted by Congress. It is the President’s obligation, and yours as his designee, to see that that Law is faithfully executed, is it not?
Your direction that the CFPB stop work on proposed rules, suspend the effective dates on rules that were finalized but not effective, stop investigative work and statutorily authorized examinations of covered companies, and discontinue funding from the Federal Reserve are all contradictory to the agency’s enabling statute. Hate to break it to you, but this isn’t faithful execution.
I should add that the foregoing description of your directives is based on a press account. I tried to double-check on the CFPB website but got a 404 message. Not a great look, if I might say so. The press account says that one of your directives was issued via the social media site called “X,” which is a known domain of trolls and bots. So, if the actions I have just discussed do not come from you but a Russian bot farm or the CCP, please accept my apology.
I understand from other press accounts that you have, on the aforesaid X, opined that the US is in a “post-Constitutional” era. May I prayerfully suggest that the Supreme Court — friends of POTUS though they be — are probably not on board with that idea. That said, reform of the CFPB is possible if you do it right. Two ideas come to mind, to wit:
Amp up the requirements in Dodd-Frank that agency actions balance costs and benefits. Republicans are good at this line of argument. I expect that Eugene Scalia is available for consultation. Or battalions of policy wonks at Cato or the Hudson Institute if you prefer.
Reconstitute the CFPB as a multi-member agency with political or interest diversification (industry / consumer) required. This was Elizabeth Warren’s original idea and it’s loved by POTUS favorite, Brett Kavanaugh. Sometimes diversity is good thing — no joke!
If this is too much work for you, given your busy schedule, I have a final idea: name change. In case you didn’t know, many of the actions taken by the CFPB — particularly enforcement —are loved by “average Americans.” Trump voters like nothing better than seeing big banks kicked in the hind quarters, made to pay back at least some of what they are seen to have extracted unjustly from the little guy. The problem for you is that POTUS associates the agency with Elizabeth Warren (nasty woman!) and worse, Obama. So, how about changing the name of the CFPB to: the Terminating Regressive Usurious Market Predators (TRUMP) Bureau? Voila! You are on the side of the masses! Don’t bother to thanks me.
This concludes what I hope you will find helpful suggestions in your new role. Please accept my best wishes as you work to Make Americans Bankrupt Again!