The Obama administration is no longer insisting on the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency as a central element of the plan to remake regulation of the financial system.(emphasis mine)
In hopes of quick congressional approval of a reform bill, White House officials are opening the door to compromise with lawmakers concerned about creating a new bureaucracy, according to congressional and some administration sources.
President Obama's economic team is now open to housing the consumer regulator inside another agency, such as the Treasury Department, though they still prefer a stand-alone agency. In either case, they are insisting on a regulator with political autonomy and real teeth so it can effectively enforce rules designed to protect consumers of mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.
Let's be clear on this: No one has any concern about a new bureaucracy. The banks want impunity to screw consumers, and members of Congress who want campaign donations from Wall Street, and White House officials completely captured by the finance industry, **cough** Geithner and Summers **cough**, are more than willing to do this.
If the CFPA is not independent, which means that they have the ability to craft their own budget, they will be subject to the tender mercies of someone like Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner or Hank "Why the f%$# isn't he in Jail" Paulson, and so will be largely ineffective.
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