Elon Musk and his tiny, intrepid Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team are ripping through DC like a small herd of bulls through a cheap Chinese tchotchke shop. It is magnificent to watch.
I look forward to each and every update. I never have to wait long, because they arrive in rapid-fire succession. On Friday, this outstanding news landed…:
“Elon Musk has found his next target: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
“Musk’s team on Friday entered the headquarters of the CFPB….Musk’s allies sought access to information technology systems and communicated with staff….Three Musk allies, some of whom are tied to his Department of Government Efficiency, have now embedded with the consumer bureau, according to the CFPB’s employees union.
“Musk posted ‘CFPB RIP’ with a tombstone emoji on his social media site X a few hours later, raising the prospect that the consumer protection agency could be the next U.S. Agency for International Development, which he has said should ‘die.’"
Yes, frigging please. Musk shuttering the CFPB is yet another Promise Made-Promise Kept:
“Business mogul and presumed Trump Cabinet appointee Elon Musk called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in a post Wednesday on social media platform X, which he owns.
“‘Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,’ Musk wrote.”
Musk and Team DOGE are now almost certainly mining the CFPB system USAID-style. Digitally mapping what is almost certainly yet another federal government mega-mess. Like with USAID, it will confirm what we have long believed to be true. Amassing mountains-to-the-sky evidence proving what we believed to be true.
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For my part, I have only been asking for the CFPB’s demise since its inception:
“The CFPB is unconstitutional….The CFPB should be abolished. But this is DC - where nothing government is ever abolished. No matter how unconstitutional the government is. No matter how much of the private sector the government destroys.”
Because DC is a reality-free zone. In June of 2020, the Supreme Court ruled the CFPB’s structure unconstitutional:
“(T)he Supreme Court held in a five-to-four decision that the statutory provision limiting the President’s authority to remove the director of the CFPB violated the Constitution by infringing on the President’s powers to execute the laws.”
That should have killed the CPFB. Except:
“The opinion provides guidance on Congress’s authority to insulate agencies from presidential influence….”
Totally and completely incorrect, Justices. Congress CAN NOT “insulate agencies from presidential influence.” Per the Constitution. The CFPB - and all the 450+ other bureaucracies - are Executive Branch agencies. The President is the Chief Executive of the Executive Branch. He can fire whomever therein he wants. For whatever reason. Or no reason at all.
The Supreme Court last May again had a CFPB case before it. And again royally screwed it up:
“The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld, by a 7-2 vote, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding structure - in effect, ending an argument that threatened to dismantle the agency.
“At issue was the process wherein the CFPB receives its appropriations through the Federal Reserve, not Congress.”
Totally and completely incorrect, Justices. All funding for all agencies must come from Congress. Per the Constitution. Says so right there in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7:
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law….”
The Federal Reserve handing the CFPB its stomping around money? Is not Congress writing law that appropriates the CFPB stomping around money.
Thus the CFPB is unconstitutional. In a second way.
The Supreme Court got it wrong. Twice. It should have closed the CFPB twice. But it didn’t.
Musk got it right. The first time. Even if he - from all appearances - didn’t shut down the CFPB for constitutional reasons.
Musk's end result - is the right one. The CFPB is dead. And it should remain dead.
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