The new Republican populism

It’s the party of main street not Wall Street now:

The lights are on at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau across the street from the White House, and employees still get paid. But, in practice, the bureau has been mostly inoperable for nearly six months. CFPB employees say they essentially spend the workday sitting on their hands, forbidden from doing any work by directive from the White House.

The bureau is supposed to be helping oversee the nation’s banks and financial services companies and taking enforcement action in case of wrongdoing. Instead, the situation is Kafkaesque: the main function seems to be undoing the rulemaking and law enforcement work that was done under previous administrations, including in President Donald Trump’s first term.

American consumers can no longer look to the bureau for help when it comes to their checking account, credit card, payday loan, auto loan or mortgage. Trump has neutered the watchdog, employees say, the culmination of a yearslong effort by Republicans who felt the agency often went overboard in its efforts.

Here’s some examples of the “freedom” consumers now enjoy under the effectively abolished CFPB:

Sensing blood in the water, companies that committed wrongdoing, or had open investigations, have lobbied the bureau and the White House for their punishments to be rescinded. Employees at the bureau say the only time their workdays get remotely busy these days is when the White House instructs them to begin rescinding one of these punishments. It often involves “reverse-engineering” reasons why the bureau, which investigated and found that these companies did harm to consumers, now no longer believes that happened.

In 2024, Navy Federal Credit Union agreed to settle claims that it illegally charged overdraft fees to its members. Among the customers at the $180 billion financial institution are Navy service men and women, and veterans. Vought canceled the settlement last month, and Navy Federal will no longer have to pay back $80 million in fees. A spokesman for Navy Federal declined to comment on whether the credit union planned to return those funds to its members, as it originally said it would.

In 2023, the auto financing arm of Toyota was found to be illegally bundling products onto car buyers’ auto loans, refusing to cancel those products and doing harm to customers’ credit scores. Toyota was ordered to refund $48 million to harmed customers. That settlement was rescinded in mid-May. A spokesman for Toyota declined to say whether customers would be reimbursed.

“Companies are lining up to get out of repaying harmed customers,” said Eric Halperin, former enforcement director at the bureau, who resigned earlier this year.

In fairness, nobody could have predicted that “the freedom to be defraud people with impunity” would be a high priority for an administration headed by Donald Trump.