It’s probably safe to say that House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, is no fan of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Hensarling long targeted the CFPB for reform, and recently, Hensarling upped the ante with the Financial CHOICE Act, the Republican-led effort to repeal and replace Dodd-Frank.
Hensarling is reportedly preparing a new version of the Financial CHOICE Act, which would drastically change how the CFPB operates.
And as Hensarling told the Dallas Morning News in a recent interview, he shows good reason to want to change the CFPB.
From the Dallas Morning News:
Rep. Jeb Hensarling figures not one in a thousand Americans has heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And so the Dallas Republican wants to leave a first impression for the unacquainted.
"It is the single-most unaccountable and powerful agency in the history of our republic, running afoul of every tenet of separation of powers and checks and balances," he said.
Never one to mince words, especially about financial regulation supported by the Democrats, Hensarling doesn’t disappoint when it comes to his description of the CFPB.
Again from the Dallas Morning News:
Hensarling says he wants to protect consumers not just from Wall Street, but also from "Washington elites." He's worked up efforts to defund the agency that was founded in 2011, oust its largely independent director or dispense with the bureau altogether.
And he has little patience for Democrats who see those moves as nothing short of a wet kiss to big banks.
"What the Democrats were trying to do, for all intents and purposes, was set up a tyranny," he said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. "The left essentially wants a benevolent dictator. … It is frankly an affront to basic American tenets of democracy."
Hensarling is just one of several prominent Republicans who have the CFPB in the crosshairs.
Last week, for example, two of Hensarling’s fellow Texans on Capitol Hill introduced bills to abolish the CFPB entirely.
The bills, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, would repeal Title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which established the CFPB.
Repealing Title X would completely abolish the CFPB.
For more on Hensarling’s views on the CFPB, click here or below.
