The following is an excerpt from Doug McKelway | January 24, 2012 | foxnews.com |
Richard Cordray made his first appearance on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in his role as the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but his calm exchanges with Republican adversaries on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform contrasted sharply with the growing Republican chorus outside the hearing room that his appointment is unconstitutional.
The hearing, titled “How Will the CFPB Function Under Richard Cordray,” may have assuaged some fears among Republican doubters that Cordray and his bureau will impose new and costly layers of regulation on nonbank lenders.
For example, when asked by South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy whether consumers had some responsibility to educate themselves about loan risks, Cordray replied, “People have to be responsible for their decisions.”
But he added that laws have to be as clear and transparent as possible.
Cordray’s response left a pleasantly surprised Gowdy to end the exchange with, “Let the record reflect that Mr. Cordray answered the question” — a not so subtle reference to Cordray’s rejected predecessor, CFPB nominee Elizabeth Warren, who refused an answer to the same question, months before.
Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general and five-time Jeopardy champion, quoted Ronald Reagan in explaining his philosophy of financial regulation. “Free men,” he said, “engaged in free enterprise build better nations, but free enterprise is not a hunting license.”
He also told sub-Committee members that he plans to use, “all the tools that are available to us. Where we can cooperate we will, but we will not hesitate to use enforcement.”
Cordray will have at his disposal quite an arsenal of enforcement: a 757-person bureau — soon to grow to more than 1,200 by summer — with a $300 million budget, responsible for overseeing everything from neighborhood credit unions to pay-day lenders.
Because the bureau is funded through the Federal Reserve, it is not…
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