In biblical times, tax collectors were hated for more than collecting taxes. Tax collectors decided who paid, if someone paid nothing, and how much a person paid. A tax collector could walk up to a person and demand a tax. If someone did not, or could not pay, then the Roman army forced the payment. The ultimate punishment was crucifixion. Tax collecting for the Romans was a form of terror, with the poor suffering the most.

Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau expressed this same form of arrogance when he said, “There’s a new cop on the beat … Pushing the envelope is a loaded phrase, but that’s absolutely what we did.”

The consumer bureau is too much like Roman tax collectors. The director of the agency has the power to rewrite and enforce 19 federal consumer-protection statutes. The director alone can decide what rules to issue, how to enforce the laws, what companies to enforce laws against, and what sanctions to impose. Neither Congress nor the president has control of the consumer bureau. Even when being funded, the Federal Reserve always pays directly to the bureau exactly the amount of money it requests.

Mick Mulvaney, the former acting director of the consumer bureau, said in a memo to agency employees:

“The damage that we [the bureau] can do to people could linger for years and cost them their jobs, their savings, and their homes. If the consumer bureau loses a court case because we ‘pushed too hard,’ we simply move on to the next matter. But where do those that we have charged go to get their time, their money, or their good names back? If a company closes its doors under the weight of a multiyear Civil Investigative Demand, you and I will still have jobs at consumer bureau. But what about the workers who are laid off as a result? Where do they go the next morning?”

It’s encouraging that Iowa’s own Sen. Joni Ernst has cosponsored the Consumer Bureau Accountability Act, and I am grateful somebody in Washington is finally tackling this issue. According to her Twitter, the act “would subject the bureau to the appropriations process like any other federal agency” and encourage transparency and accountability. It is refreshing to see this new attitude with the consumer bureau.

— Patrick Wronkiewicz