Comments on Divided We Stand United We Fall (The Dividist Papers): Friday Flotsam - Birthers, Truthers, Fraudsters, a...

De gustibus non est disputandem. If the agency we...

2012-01-16T09:55:59.984-08:00

De gustibus non est disputandem.

If the agency were subject to Congressional oversight and the regular funding process, it wouldn't bother me so much. Congress could always badger and starve it when it got out of line, and it WILL get out of line.

But it was set up completely outside the budget process and Congressional oversight, with a broadly amorphous mission that it can twist into regulating almost anything on a whim, and IMHO that makes it very dangerous indeed.

Tully, I agree with you about the propriety of thi...

2012-01-12T15:03:43.445-08:00

Tully,
I agree with you about the propriety of this (and other) regulatory agencies that seem to have been created for the purpose of expanding executive authority or as a consequence of congress abdicating their legislative responsibilities or both.

My point, is that when considered among the dazzling panoply of civil rights eroded or lost and executive branch powers claimed, expanded, and abused by the last two administrations, the questionable political machinations around this one recess appointment does not move the needle on my outrage meter. I just cannot make myself care about it.

The Cordray appointment wouldn't have been blo...

2012-01-09T08:37:05.801-08:00

The Cordray appointment wouldn't have been blocked in the first place if the CFPB hadn't been created as a banana-republic shadow agency with enormously sweeping and amorphous powers totally outside the oversight of Congress.

Frankly, if *I* were a Congresscritter, I would do everything I could every chance I had to eradicate the agency as currently constructed.