A lot of the debate at today's Government Oversight hearing on the CFPB dealt with whether the CFPB was the most accountable or the least accountable federal government agency ever. My position has been that compared with other federal financial regulators, the CFPB is remarkably accountable. But accountability comes in many different ways and forms. I've tried to summarize comparative accountability visually in the chart below. It compares the oversight mechanisms that apply to the CFPB with some other agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board, the FTC, the Office of Comptroller of the Currency and Office of Thrift Supervision, the SEC, and the Social Security Administration.
Now not all forms of oversight are equal. A GAO audit isn't the same as Presidential removal power, for example. Nonetheless, the chart (available as a better quality PDF here) shows that the CFPB is subject to an extensive battery of oversight mechanisms--more than any of the other financial regulators included in the comparison.
No comments:
Post a Comment