No consumer protections from the banksters for you! That's the
verdict from the House Appropriations Committee, which voted Thursday to slash the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's budget by more than half.
The legislation provides annual funding for the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies for the fiscal year 2012. According to the bill, the Federal Reserve, which will fund the CFPB, cannot obligate more than $200 million to the agency, but the Fed estimates the CFPB will require $500 million.
The bureau is scheduled to open July 21 and will become the de facto regulator for the entire mortgage industry, from origination to servicing. According to Dodd-Frank, the Fed will supply 10% of its expenses to form the agency through its first year. That goes up to 11% in the second year and 12% every year after....
Lisa Donner, executive director of the consumer group Americans for Financial Reform, said the bill undermines the independence of the CFPB.
"They are trying to turn the CFPB into a weak and timid agency, without the will or ability to curb the kind of financial abuses that caused the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," Donner said.
That's exactly what they're trying to do, and it's at the behest of their masters on Wall Street. If that means another global financial meltdown, so be it.