Dallas lawmaker accuses Democrats of pushing 'tyranny' in fight over consumer protection bureau

[TexasTowelie]

WASHINGTON — 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.

That saber-rattling tone marks the latest tactic from the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee as he and others in the GOP consider sundry ways to claw back components of a major law that tightened financial-sector regulations after the 2008 crisis.

The consumer bureau, so far, has emerged as ground zero.

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.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/banking/2017/02/20/dallas-lawmaker-accuses-democrats-pushing-tyranny-fight-consumer-protection-bureau

[DetlefK]

1. Washington elites? Like the republican White House, the republican Senate and the republican House?

[TexasTowelie]

2. Hensarling thinks that we are idiots.

I guess he is correct to a certain extent considering who is in the White House. However, I think that more than 1 in a 1000 know about the CFPB.

[Ilsa]

3. A bureau that seeks to protect consumers is elitist?

That's pretty foul rhetoric, especially considering what the elitist bankers were doing before the CPB.

[Sherman A1]

4. The very name of the bureau

Seems to challenge the concept he is trying to convey.