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March 6, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
29:07
They know what’s in your Wallet
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
This house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't going to be that fun.
Hey everybody, you know, I got a question for you.
How many of you know that there is an agency that technically has control over mortgages, credit cards, loans, how you can get money, how the banks or these institutions cannot give you money, and at the end of the day has no absolute oversight by Congress? and at the end of the day has no absolute
This is an agency set up by the federal government that has every impact into your life, but yet Congress does not have control over it either by how it gets its money Or by the processes of oversight from Congress.
Well, that's the CFPB. Today on the show, John Barlow is going to be with you to talk about that.
We're going to get to that here in just a few minutes.
For the discussion, because the Supreme Court has decided to pick up this case, I'm hopeful that this case will begin a dismantling of the CFPB at most, and hopefully very much of a restructuring of the CFPB. Because this is an agency that gets into every part of your life that affects everything that you do financially, but yet has no real oversight in it.
It came out of the Obama-Biden administration.
This is Elizabeth Warren, baby, as it looks at it.
So it's going to be a great conversation today.
But I was just thinking, too, as we've been looking over the last few days and seeing the courts in itself.
Let me just say a statement here for a second.
This court is seemingly, I know it's taken a lot of heat, and we've talked about it here on the podcast, but this court is bringing, I believe, back some equilibrium to the executive branch and the legislative branch along with others.
So let's make sure that we're paying attention to these kind of cases, because when these kind of cases come up, they affect you.
John, good to have you back on the show.
I mean, lots going on.
We're going to get to the CFPB stuff here in just a minute.
But give me just sort of an impression.
I mean, we've been talking about markets.
We've been talking about, you know, over time when you've been with us before, that business issues and things going on in our financial system.
Where do you see us right now, John?
There's a lot of folks out there that are still, you know, looking at the Fed.
They're looking at the, you know, now unfortunately getting or fortunately having to look at getting into a political season.
Where are you looking at it right now?
I look at the market, I never underestimate the initiative and entrepreneurship and innovation of the American people, no matter what politicians do to them.
As my colleague Wayne Cruz says at CEI, All politicians, you don't need a stimulus.
All you need is just to remove the rocks that are keeping the garden from growing.
And there are a lot of rocks, but people find ways to get around them.
And now with divided government, with the Republican House, you have at least somewhat of a break.
And hopefully the courts, the Trump-appointed judges and maybe others who will take seriously the Constitution, will also give American entrepreneurs a break, like in this case where they hopefully will place the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the monstrosity created by Dodd-Frank to escape the accountability of both the President and Congress under some constitutional constraints.
Yeah, John, and I think let's do something.
And I thought about this as you were talking there because, you know, it's been around for a while now.
People, you know, and it was, you know, Elizabeth Warren's baby, you know, brought up under, you know, Obama, Biden the first time, completely.
Completely, I mean, and we can get into a lot of, but I want people to understand that this is more than just a court case.
I mean, because, frankly, we have the attention span many times, you know, of folks that will pay attention to what we need to pay attention to.
This is something that's been out there for a while.
People have, you know, is either faded in the distance.
It's been discussed by us in Washington for a long time.
Go back for just a second, if you would.
Give us sort of the foundations of what this is, what it may be intended to be, what it actually is, and how everybody listening to this podcast is affected by the CFPB. Okay.
Well, everybody is affected.
Everybody who basically gets out a mortgage, the lack of competition.
We had actually one of our...
Co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit, and people that we were representing in a lawsuit against the CFPB a long time back that raised some of the same grounds that the Supreme Court is now hearing.
The community bank, which had not had a default in decades because they knew everyone, it was the State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, said that they couldn't make mortgages because of the weight of the red tape.
And this is basically, Elizabeth Warren said that you basically should regulate loan products like toasters, that the disclosure was not enough.
You would need to, if a loan is proved to be faulty, I mean, never mind how, if it's the way people use it, a type of loan, the government needed to ban it.
And you needed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, just like the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
I think about her analogy, especially now that the Biden administration wants to ban gas stoves for their own goods.
So it's not really good to have the government interfering too much in the market for kitchen appliances or for mortgages.
But also one of the things that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, when they were making Dodd-Frank, was they put in an unaccountable head of this agency that could not be removed by the president except for malfeasance.
So it was not an independent board like, say, the Securities and Exchange Commission Federal Communications Board where you had people of both parties.
It was like a cabinet secretary But it was one that served a fixed six-year term that could potentially outlast the one of the presidential administration.
And on top of that, it was not accountable to Congress either because it did not get its appropriations from Congress.
It got its appropriations from the Federal Reserve, the money the Federal Reserve makes from selling dollars.
And this agency, with no accountability, would have just incredible reach not only over consumers that get mortgages, But just for any small business that extends credit, including, like, say, an orthodontist that spreads out payments because people can't pay for their kids' braces all at once, or a butcher who may do that.
You've got plans, you know, with buy now, pay later.
The CFPB has jurisdiction over all of that, and yet no accountability.
Somewhat the accountability was fixed in a court case.
And they ruled that the president does have removal power.
And of course, Biden, even though he's now complaining about that the CFPB should be independent, was fired, you know, as he had the right to do.
President Trump's appointee on the first day in office and appointed is an acting and then got confirmed Rohit Chopra, who's the head of it now.
And that's something the next Republican administration is going to do.
But as long as they are shielded from congressional accountability, with the appropriations, they lack that pillar of accountability that so many other agencies have.
And Congress can't use its power of the purse strings to exercise and make them more in line with the voters' wishes.
John, you just brought up something.
I've seen a trend in D.C., and this one is the most egregious example.
And again, we can look back on it in the past tense and say, you know, how could this have happened?
But really, even in the present tense, you've got to say, how could this have ever happened?
How could you have thought something was so egregious in the marketplace, so to speak, that you would remove or begin?
Remember, in the beginning, basically, you set up an independent agency, forced its funding through the Fed, which the Fed Reserve didn't want to fund to start with.
They have gripped about this from the start.
But made it completely independent from anything focused in government, but yet put it over.
I mean, this screams, you know, all the way back to the Tea Party, you know, the British Tea Party.
I mean, we have no say in what this organization does.
And that one court case you talked about, it made some difference, but it's still the independence of this agency and how it's funded is extremely important.
Yes.
And, you know, it's independent.
I mean, the independence is kind of a show, too, because the head of the CFPB, who Biden appointed and was confirmed by the Dem Senate, I mean, shows up at the White House all the time and talks about, you know, Coordinated efforts, like, say, on junk fees, like on these price controls on late fee credit cards, which would, you know, raise the price of, you know, those who pay on time and everyone else.
So they're always talking about coordinating with Biden, you know, with the CFPB and the FTC on that.
So the agencies are not really, they're loyal to the administrative state and if they like a party in power, yet what really, what the synonym for, or what the It's really more unaccountability than even independence because they're not accountable to Congress and the people's wishes.
Yeah, so we break this down, folks.
If you're listening today with John and Barlow and I talking about this, let me just break this very, very clear.
It goes down to this.
This is what many of us fought against.
It's why, you know, President Trump appointed Mulvaney.
There were several others that basically for at least about four years, we saw a stoppage of CFPB for the most part.
It was still there, but...
Because we were wrestling with this such a unique setup of how this agency was set up to start with, it was very difficult to get answers.
I mean, they built a multi-million dollar building in Washington, D.C. with a waterfall in the front.
I mean, this is...
Yes, it retimes the cost of other Washington buildings.
And when your colleague at the time, who's still in Congress, Congresswoman Wagner, Congresswoman Ann Wagner, asked Richard Corddry about it.
He said he gave an answer like, you know, why does this concern you?
It's something like that.
Which is so arrogant.
You know, you're only a member of Congress.
You don't fund me, is basically what he's saying.
Yeah, and it makes it up, John, I mean, just that kind of arrogance.
Could you imagine, I mean, let's put this in perspective for people.
Could you imagine Secretary Austin from the Defense Department, Secretary of Defense, coming to the Hill and saying, look, we get our money from everywhere else.
We don't really give a flip about you.
You know, that's sort of really what this agency is sort of set up as.
And I don't think people understand that some of this stuff that you're seeing in your credit markets, your credit scores, your credit card issues, these kind of things are all coming from an agency in which your local, your congressman, your senator have frankly no direct impact into it.
Yes.
And I mean, community banks and credit unions, the Credit Union National Association, have said the cost for credit unions like in four years after the CFPB went from like $4 billion to $7 billion when credit unions have to pay.
The Independent Community Bankers of America have talked about that and talked about how, you know, a lot of community banks can't issue mortgages anymore because of the cost of CFPB rules.
There was one particular outrage where A judge, you know, a federal judge ranged them in, but may be overturned, where the CFPB went after a lender in the Chicago area.
Now, Chicago just threw out its mayor, the residents of Chicago, the mostly Democrat, mostly African American, because of crime.
Yet the CFPB Charged this lender with discrimination because of comments one of the principals was making on a radio show like yours about crime in Chicago.
They made the charge that talking about crime in Chicago would create an unwelcome atmosphere for African Americans without even showing an applicant who had been discriminating.
It was creating a disparate impact.
I mean, just talking about crime.
I mean, First Amendment issues, so many things, you know, where this is out of bounds, to put it mildly.
And that's why you need, you know, that's what happens with an agency with, you know, no accountability to Congress like this.
It has such a wide range.
Exactly.
I mean, when you get into this, too, I mean, also going into, you know, even down, because all of this is slowing down, you get into the industrial loan groups, you know, for small $1,000, $2,000 loans.
I mean, and again, that people need, otherwise they're going to turn to the streets.
I mean, there's a real huge issue here, you know, as we look at, but all of this is the fact about CFPB. John, you just hit on something I want to, if you don't mind, I want to delve into a little bit more.
To me, this, uh, Equity ESG stuff, the issues that government agencies are forcing upon, the Biden administration is forcing upon, the stock market, the way businesses conduct themselves in contract, getting these social impacts, these equity issues, all these things coming into it.
I think this snuck up on a lot of people.
It was disguised in these fairness kind of clothing.
But these are the kind of things in which we are moving more and more, especially under this administration, to basically a government-controlled or heavily government-influenced private business sector.
I think very much so.
And all the more reason for Congress, you know, for the DEI edicts in, you know, diversity, equity, and inclusion, so-called, in the agencies is for Congress to exercise their power of the purse strings in the appropriations fight, which they can do with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission.
I mean, But unfortunately, they can't do that with the CFPB as long as they don't control the purse strings there.
So that's why they need it with all of these things.
And it shows that, I mean, the agencies are not really independent if this is pushing all of these.
You know, they'll work with an administration they like or that they're in ideological sympathy with, and that's why you need the congressional checks.
Yep.
Well, that brings us to the case.
That brings us to the case, you know, that has now been picked up to be heard next cycle with the Supreme Court.
Again, for those out there hoping this will be heard now and be done by June, it'll probably be next June before we actually say something.
I believe there's a chance it could be heard now.
It could be heard late in the session.
That's uncertain.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's known to be heard next session, but we know the possibility of this session.
That would be outstanding if we could, because this is drug-owned for almost, what, going on 12 years now.
I mean, this has been a long process drawn out.
Discuss the case for a minute.
I mean, we've mentioned the reasoning why behind CFPB and sort of what you're sensing from the What we've seen from the court in, say, the student loan case, we've seen it in the Department of Energy case, where this automatic deferral to executive power is not there anymore, it seems.
And I think that would give, for those of us who are concerned about overreach and a lot of things, a lot of hope that maybe we're going to see this begin to continue to roll back on the major questions doctrine, those kind of things like that.
Yes.
Well, this case, it's interesting.
It began as a challenge.
You had mentioned some of the smaller loans, like some of the lenders who make that.
I think the Community Financial Services Association were challenging a rule from the Obama administration that was partially revealed in the In the Trump administration, but partially because it was put in the courts, was still going through court review.
And they ruled at the time that the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana, and which has challenged a lot of the deferral to executive agencies when they twist what Congress said or lack of accountability, had said that This rule was invalid because of the structure of the CFPB and it doesn't get appropriations from Congress.
And it actually voided the rule, which is very important because when rules are made, just like when there's jury tampering or other things, And somebody doesn't get a fair trial.
The court should, as the court did in this case, rule that regulations enacted in an unconstitutionally structured agency should have to go back to the drawing board.
And it did with this rule and potentially other rules that were challenged.
Because of that, rather than take its chance in the Fifth Circuit, the Biden administration actually asked The Supreme Court to review this.
So the Fifth Circuit put sort of, you know, put, well, Americans who believe in the constitutional system in a good position.
So I think what could happen, the question is, well, I think the Biden administration is going to try to get the Supreme Court, you know, Expect them to do all of these horror stories about, oh, if the CFPB somehow got funding from Congress and had to answer the politicians, there would be all this fraud.
I mean, never mind.
I mean, there are just so many other agencies that answer to Congress, and somehow they do punish fraud, although in the case of FTX, sometimes they don't go after it fast enough, but that's not an issue.
But just scare stories.
Also, the other things are...
You know, some some issues about, you know, would this void the rule?
Would this void the rules?
All the rules for the CFPB are just some of that.
And I think they're looking for like a split among the Biden administration is looking for a split among the conservative justice about how much of what the CFPB did previously go out the window and also look for when it does get, you know, what the results of this case, if it does.
The way that we're funding is necessary.
That is when Congress, you know, to sort of reauthorize the agency or to vote for funding, should have at the very least a couple conditions like the Chicago case, the late fee price controls that would raise things for everyone.
I mean, we're putting that together and it gets at the Competitive Enterprise Institute the most outrageous actions of the CFPB and what needs to be repealed there, what we need to get the agency to repeal before it gets a penny.
Yeah, no, I think you're dead on.
The question comes, and I'm wondering if, you know, beyond the funding issue, which has been one of the main question points in this legal case, the Supreme Court can also widen its view.
And I think this could be an interesting time In light of some of the decisions recently we saw in last term and hopefully we're going to see in this term.
To go back to the very essence of did Congress, I mean, this to me goes back almost to the Marbury-Madison kind of thing.
Did Congress make a law that was inherently unconstitutional?
I think, well, yes, as far as the courts already ruled that a single director heading an agency must be removable by the president.
Now, this was before Justice Barrett was on the court and Roberts was, so it kind of did this, you know, quote unquote fix where it said, you know, from now on the director will be removable by the president without revisiting past actions under this structure.
And that's going to be the issue as far as I think you might see a split with Justice Roberts and maybe another one with some of the others about do we just say this is from now on or do we revisit the previous actions there?
But definitely it would say that, you know, despite what Congress can't shield itself from accountability.
I mean, we make the point.
Like with regulations in general, that it offers that Congress lacks both the authority and the responsibility because sometimes they say, yeah, we made this law, but we didn't interpret it.
That was the regulatory agencies.
What CEI has advocated for for a long time is that Congress should be able to have to approve, like in the RAINS Act, at least major regulations, if not every regulation, So that, you know, voters would have some—so that they—voters would have accountability over these rules and know who to blame when they go through and give Congress that responsibility.
Well, as the primary sponsor of the RAINS Act for eight years in Congress, I'm in full agreement of that.
And because that was one—and if you—you know, for people who don't know what the RAINS Act is, I mean, it's basically just what John said.
It gives Congress the ability of these multibillion-dollar large— Regulatory packages are put together in these agencies, such as coal, brick, emissions, water, those kinds.
The Congress actually has to step up and do its job.
And that is not just pawn it off to agencies and then say, well, we can't do anything about it.
Again, this CFPB, though, just strikes at the heart of all of us, though.
That cannot believe that there was a Congress, that there was a law put in place that actually set up an agency that directly affected all of Americans and did so outside the purview of anything Congress can do about it.
And I think just the heart of it, not just that you can remove a director, but the fact that it's not funded, the way it's funded, how it's funded, I mean, it just reeks of this needs to change.
It really does.
You know, it came about when the Dems were controlling, you know, Obama was in power, President Obama was in power, and the Dems were controlling both branches of Congress, but it's just been so hard to reverse.
There was, in the Trump administration, both in Congress and through his power at the regulatory agency, there were some, at least, you know, Some pushbacks that made things a little easier, lifted some of the red tape for the American people.
But now, as the Wall Street Journal said a couple days ago, there's just been a deluge of more red tape from the Biden administration.
But the courts are still there, and hopefully they will adhere to the Constitution and use the power that they have to rein in these runaway agencies like the CFPB. Oh, exactly.
And if it wasn't for Mulvaney and the other Trump appointees, it's sad when you have to put an appointee to basically go in and just stop doing anything in an agency for an agency to quit harming the American people.
And the Biden administration has shown no desire to not harm American people in this regard because they have this, again, they don't like private contracts.
They don't like the free market system.
And Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and many others, going back to Dodd-Frank and everything else, has just been hammering away at that for a long time.
So, John, from a perspective going forward, we can look at it possibly this year, but definitely next term.
In the meantime, we'll hopefully see things like the student loan program be shown to be unconstitutional, as I believe it is.
We saw this last year.
I hope that Roberts doesn't try to continue to keep this court in what I call a Band-Aid mode.
We saw that.
You made a little reference to it a little bit earlier with that previous ruling.
The concern I have with Roberts is, and he's a conservative jurist, I get it on most business stuff, but when it comes to the big questions, he seems to be more of a, let's see if we can make this bad meal a little bit better by adding a milkshake to it or something, because somebody just needs to be scrapped, and he seems to be more of one to put a Band-Aid on.
He thinks he's concerned about the legitimacy of the court, but so he thinks, you know, incremental steps don't, you know, don't overturn presidents all at one time.
But when there's a bad precedent, you know, wrongly decided and out of sync with the Constitution, it is legitimate for the court to overturn it.
And it's certainly not stopping the attacks on the court when they go Robert's way.
That doesn't...
Certainly not sacking the leftist attack, so I don't think sometimes you have to, you know, it's the best thing in the long run just to rip the Band-Aid off.
To use another Band-Aid analogy.
Oh, yeah.
I wish that Roberts would focus more on the law.
What does the law say?
What does Congress roll with?
What are those kind of things?
Again, I'm being a little critical this morning.
I get it.
But, I mean, Roberts would have never, I don't think, would have ever set up a judicial review.
I mean, just so you go back to this, you know, from these big-picture perspectives on how this actually works.
But, John, we're going to keep up with this.
Thanks for your insight.
People need to be aware that this is affecting their credit cards, their home mortgages, their car loans.
And when we've got inflation like it is, we've got a Fed that's raising rates, we've got all kinds of things going on, these become more and more pocketbook issues for everyday America.
John, thanks for joining me today, okay?
Thanks so much for having me, Doug.
CEI.org is our website.
I understand.
Go to him.
You can find out all kinds of information.
CEI.org.
They've got lots of stuff.
Great place to learn.
I go there a lot to see what is being written.
John's one of their leaders.
That's why he's on this podcast a lot.
We appreciate him being a part.
Go to there and find out.
Also, go to thedougcollinspodcast.com.
You can leave me an email if you have any more questions that we maybe can bring up in future episodes.
Glad to have you with us today.
We'll see you next time on the Doug Collins Podcast.
Thanks so much, Doug.
It's always a pleasure.
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