Andy Barr: “I thank Mr. Womack, chairman of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, not only for his leadership…”

“I thank Mr. Womack, chairman of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, not only for his leadership but his rabid support of the Razorbacks. Kentucky and Arkansas have a big rivalry in basketball, but in this case we are on the same page because the chairman has rightly included in this year's FSGG appropriations bill my legislation, H.R. 1382, the Taking Account of Bureaucrats' Spending Act, or the TABS Act, which would separate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from the Federal Reserve System, make it an independent agency and subject it, importantly, to the congressional appropriations process. The TABS Act would remedy the serious constitutional defect in the structure of the CFPB as established by the Dodd-Frank Act under which the CFPB draws its funding uniquely from the Federal Reserve instead of from Congress, like most other executive branch agencies. Specifically, Dodd-Frank delegates to the Director of the CFPB the unilateral power to decide in perpetuity how much money he wants for the agency to carry out its broad and potent regulatory and enforcement powers. The Director then requests such amount from the Fed, which is itself exempt from the congressional appropriations process, making it double insulated from accountability. The Fed is then required to provide such amount to the Bureau, no questions asked. This is a constitutional aberration, and it is a violation of the separation of powers.…”