| LEADING THE DAY Senators gripe over Mulvaney's power at consumer bureau: Members of a Senate panel and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney agreed on just one thing Thursday: No one is happy with his power as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). While Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee praised Mulvaney for using his expansive, unchecked authority to rein in an agency they've loathed for half a decade, they expressed deep concerns about what that power could yield under another official. Several questioned whether the CFPB should even exist, while others called for strict checks and fundamental changes to the agency's structure. Democrats who had long defended the CFPB portrayed Mulvaney as a usurper who has chained up a once powerful protector of consumers. "He's hoping that if he does a bad enough job running the CFPB, Congress will take away the CFPB's ability to protect consumers," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the Banking panel's ranking Democrat. "Congress should not fall for it." Mulvaney, who also appeared before the House on Wednesday, urged lawmakers to take control over the CFPB's funding, install an independent inspector general and disperse the director's power to regulate and litigate among a broader array of bureau leaders. Even so, Mulvaney made it clear that he saw no reason for the CFPB to exist at all. "You could protect consumers without me being here," Mulvaney said. Here's more from me on his showdown with the Senate. Reactions: - "You'll bring a ray of sunshine to a black hole of democracy I like what you're trying to do." -- Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).
- "It's job is clear: to fight for hard working families against unfair, abusive and deceptive practices." -- Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
- "You better be damn sure willing to list out all of the other people who are suffering because of the regulatory overreach." -- Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to the bureau's defenders.
Mulvaney vs. Warren: After months of sniping at each other through heated letters and public barbs, Mulvaney and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had their first face-to-face battle. Warren accused Mulvaney of derailing the agency out of politically motivated spite, insisting he has been "hurting real people to score cheap political points." "You've taken obvious joy in talking about how the agency would help banks much more than consumers, and how upset that would make me," Warren said. "But this isn't about me." The backstory: Warren is considered the architect of the CFPB, laying the foundation for the bureau as an adviser to then-President Obama in 2011. She has become one of the CFPB's most vocal defenders since her 2012 election to the Senate. Mulvaney has said the previous CFPB regime waged an ideological crusade against lenders spurred by Warren's constant criticism of banks. "I don't want us to be Elizabeth Warren's baby," Mulvaney said Monday at a conference of community bankers. He also singled out a small minority of CFPB staffers aligned with "the Elizabeth Warren view of the world that lending money for profit is evil" that he alleges has undermined the bureau with misleading leaks to reporters. Battle for control of CFPB heads to appeals court: The fight over who should lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) hit the nation's second most powerful court on Thursday. CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English urged a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to rule that she is the rightful leader of the bureau, not the man that President Trump put in place, budget director Mick Mulvaney. The court grappled with the language of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and how it squares with the president's authority under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) to temporarily fill vacancies. The Hill's Lydia Wheeler was there to break it all down for us.
If you want to know more about how we got here, these stories are a good start: Balanced budget amendment fails: A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution went down to defeat in the House on Thursday after conservatives failed to garner the supermajority needed to send it to the Senate. The vote was 233-184, short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. While fiscal hawks in Congress backed the proposal-- which would require Congress not to spend more than it brings in -- Democrats argued the vote was a gimmick to help Republicans save face amid an explosion in federal deficits. The bill was brought to the floor under an agreement made between Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in October. The Speaker agreed on a vote in exchange for conservative support to overcome a procedural hurdle paving the way for the party's signature tax reform. The Hill's Juliegrace Brufke and Niv Elis explain here. Tax rules will be subject to more OMB review: Certain tax rules will be subject to review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under a memo released Thursday by OMB and the Treasury Department. The memo follows a debate over whether OMB should have more oversight of tax rules, as Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) work to implement the new tax-cut law. Under a 1983 document, IRS rules were largely exempted from review by OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Conservative groups and some GOP lawmakers had been pushing for more OMB oversight and for tax rules to undergo a cost-benefit analysis, arguing that doing so would improve the quality of the tax rules and make IRS rules subject to the same process as those from other agencies. But other lawmakers, as well as some tax experts and members of the business community, had expressed concerns that more OMB oversight of IRS rules would slow down much-sought guidance by the agency on the new tax law. The Hill's Naomi Jagoda tells us what this means for the new tax code. MARKET CHECK: Stocks had a strong day, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 1.2 percent with a 293-point gain. The Nasdaq rose 1 percent, while S&P 500 index increased by 0.82 percent. GOOD TO KNOW - China says it 'will not hesitate to fight back' against proposed US tariffs.
- More than 100 business groups on Thursday sent a letter to Congress calling on lawmakers to ensure that U.S. consumers don't pay the price for a crackdown on China's unfair trading practices.
- The attorney general of West Virginia on Thursday filed suit against Equifax, accusing the credit reporting agency of failing to secure its systems, resulting in the data breach that affected roughly 148 million people in the United States.
- Bank earnings are coming, and they're going to be huge, according to CNBC.
ODDS AND ENDS - Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. is struggling in an otherwise thriving home-goods retail sector with shares of the company plummeting 19.5 percent in Thursday trading. (Marketwatch)
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