Here's something on which you can rely to be accurate, every time: When Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has an idea about matters of economics, she's wrong. It's as sure as the sun coming up in the morning; it will, in the east, and Senator Warren will be wrong every time.
Nowhere has that been more apparent than in examining the record of her brainchild (I use the term 'brain' advisedly), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB. We are generally correct to be a little skeptical about anything with "Bureau" in the title, but this one has been a real mess. Now, the White House has released a report detailing just how much this little piece of big-government genius is costing American borrowers.
- The regulatory burden imposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has increased the compliance and liability costs associated with consumer financial products, which financial institutions pass on to consumers in the form of higher prices and reduced product offerings. The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) estimates that since 2011, the CFPB has cost consumers between $237-$369 billion, including fiscal costs, increased borrowing expenses, and reduced originations.
- Of the total above, CEA finds that increased borrowing costs amount to at least $222-$350 billion[1]($160-253 per borrower) from the CFPB’s inception in 2011 through 2024.
- Broken down by loan type, the CFPB’s rulemaking has cost consumers $116-$183 billion in higher mortgage costs ($1,100-$1,700 per originated loan), $32-$51 billion for auto loans ($91-$143 per loan), and $74-$116 billion for credit cards ($80-$126 per loan). These costs significantly surpass the CFPB’s reported $21 billion returned to consumers (about $15 per borrower).
- In 2024 alone, the CEA estimates the combined annual cost of credit for mortgages, autos, and credit cards is between $24-$38 billion.
- CEA also estimates that the higher borrowing costs from CFPB policies significantly reduced loan originations, resulting in an economic efficiency loss of between $1.5-$5.7 billion to consumers.
There's more at the link, but you get the idea.
Read More: GOP Probes Biden CFPB Data Security Fail: Consumers' Data Leaked to Personal Email
Trump Admin Blasted for CFPB Security Breach - Which Also Happened Under Biden
There's another aspect to this as well:
- The CFPB has received $8.9 billion in total transfers from the Federal Reserve between 2011 and 2024 when adjusted for inflation. Since funds transferred to the CFPB would otherwise have been transferred to the US Treasury, the lost revenue results in a marginal excess tax burden (METB) of $4.4 billion. Taken together, the fiscal cost of the CFPB since inception is over $13 billion.
That's money that could be put to better use, or better still, not spent at all.
I've been writing in opposition to this boondoggle since it first went into operation. While it's a safe bet to oppose anything that Senator Warren thinks is a good idea - if she said the sky was blue, I'd look out a window - but this is not only costly, it's arguably without oversight, and I would maintain it's unconstitutional to boot. That would take a long legal battle to prove, though, despite what seems to me to be the very clear wording of the Tenth Amendment. But the Trump administration has been working to shut this unconstitutional bureau down, despite opposition at every turn, and now there are 13 billion more reasons to see this done.
Editor's Note: With President Trump back in the White House, the state of our Union is strong once again.
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