The new Republican ecomomic populism
By 
It’s the party of the working class and the party of constitutional government:
In the filing, the CFPB said it has enough money to last “at least” through the end of the year but “anticipates exhausting its currently available funds in early 2026.”
The move would leave the CFPB without money to operate starting next year, even to carry out its required activities, unless Congress passes fresh funding for the agency. That is unlikely, given widespread Republican opposition to the CFPB.
A new opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, submitted in court, contends that the CFPB cannot draw money from the Federal Reserve currently because the agency is only entitled to the central bank’s surpluses and the Fed has operated at a loss since 2022.
The Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, requires the Fed to transfer from the “combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System” the amount that the CFPB director determines is necessary to operate the agency, with certain limits.
The Justice Department said that it now believes that “combined earnings” refers to profits. “If the Federal Reserve has no profits, it cannot transfer money to the CFPB,” the DOJ wrote.
That argument gained traction in conservative circles as a new way to attack the CFPB after the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 2024. But several federal judges have rejected that theory when companies raised it to dismiss CFPB lawsuits. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, similarly rejected the premise that the CFPB can only be funded through Fed profits.
The decision, which Acting Director Russ Vought has telegraphed for months, moves the administration closer to dismantling the CFPB entirely. That would be unprecedented in the 17 years since Congress created the agency in response to the global financial crisis.
Democrats warn that closing the CFPB would strip oversight from the nation’s $18 trillion consumer debt market just as delinquencies on credit cards, auto loans and student loans remain elevated. It’s unclear who would take over the CFPB’s handling of consumer complaints or enforcement of federal consumer protection laws.
Needless to say, the Republican answer for who should “take over the CFPB’s handling of consumer complaints or enforcement of federal consumer protection laws” is “nobody.”
The argument that the CFPB can only be funded out of “profits” is self-evidently farcical, but the beauty of the shadow docket is that you can prevent any lower court from enforcing the law without having to say anything at all. As for Article I of the Constitution, never heard of it.