CFPB: The Need For Checks and Balances

The CFPB can achieve robust consumer protection that is economically sound and preserves consumer choice, but only if Congress puts in place the appropriate controls and oversight. The threats of agency tunnel-vision, overreach, and politicization are real—and inherent to all bureaucracies. And if these risks are not properly addressed at a structural level, they will over time inevitably lead to the Bureau’s abandonment of sound regulatory principles.

Aware of these inherent risks and as a fundamental building block of the American government, Congress historically subject all federal agencies to common-sense checks and balances that ensure their accountability. The need for these traditional constraints is particularly acute in this context.  However, in the case of the CFPB, the new agency is insulated from the traditional checks and balances other independent agencies comply with.  

The following is a comparison of selected federal regulators showing the different layers of accountability facing selected independent agencies.

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