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insider corruption regulation too much government

Killing a Bureau

First, Trump fires the holdover director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a radically anti-​business agency. He appoints the new treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, as acting director.

Bessent orders the agency to stop everything — “rulemaking, communications, litigation,” Bloomberg Law reported. “A source inside the bureau who asked to remain anonymous said the order appeared to shut down the CFPB altogether, for the time being.”

So far, so good.

Trump replaces acting director Bessent with Russ Vought, a former and also the new director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The CFPB’s website goes dark and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) begins to audit the books.

Musk and his team will find bad things. But “efficiency” isn’t quite the issue. Suppose the Bureau proves to be extremely efficient and noncorrupt at the task of making businesses extremely inefficient?

The mission itself is bad.

This agency sets its own budget, is perversely cut off from congressional oversight, has been able to run wild. One of its strokes of genius: treating video games as bank accounts.

Now we have oversight. Internal. “The calls are coming from inside the house”; it’s being gutted from within.

RedState hopes the CFPB’s “hyperaggressive regulation-​writing and legal thuggery will be markedly reduced” and that the agency may even be closed.

Yes, end it: as critics have long argued. Why does this agency exist except to harass and murder businesses and free enterprise? One of many federal agencies that should expire. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


Previously on the CFPB:

Give Them Credit — February 2, 2014
Invulnerable Government — November 28, 2017
Peel Back the Onion — November 30, 2017
Protector Protection — January 6, 2020

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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies responsibility

Too Much of a Good Thing

Once upon a time, over-​indulgence was considered a sin, a vice.

Not so much, nowadays.

Somewhere along the line, the idea that a little of a good thing was good, that general abundance is good, but that there can be too much of a good thing for any particular person … this latter common sense idea got lost.

I was reminded of this while reading the latest from the nation’s most famous investor: “Warren Buffett set himself on a potential collision course with public health campaigners when he said it was ‘quite spurious’ to lay the blame for obesity and diabetes at the door of fizzy drinks companies, such as his part-​owned Coca-Cola.”

The octogenarian multi-​billionaire Buffet, described as a “renowned Cherry Coke drinker,” defended not only his habit but the company that produced it. He emphasized choice, consumer choice. And he said, “I make a choice to get 700 calories from Coke, I like fudge a lot, too, and peanut brittle and I am a very happy guy.”

It came up because a university study had “linked fizzy drinks to 184,000 deaths annually worldwide.”

Well, name your poison. Some folks over-​indulge in alcohol; others, food; others, fizzy drinks. But Buffet limits his Cherry Coke intake, as common sense would indicate.

Gluttony used to be a vice. It was preached against. The morality of common sense held sway in our culture.

At some point hedonism in the unrestrained sense took hold of many consumers, who can pay a heavy price — if not at the grocery, at the doctor’s office.

No new laws or regulations are needed. Let everyone, billionaire or not, add up their costs and choose.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Warren Buffett, Coca-Cola, consumer, regulations, consumer protection

 


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