A federal judge on Sept. 25 rejected the Trump administration’s claim that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) cannot take money from the Federal Reserve while the central bank is losing money.
Unlike most federal agencies, the CFPB does not live on an annual appropriation from Congress. The 2010 Dodd-Frank law that created the bureau requires the Fed every quarter to send the bureau whatever amount the CFPB director says is “reasonably necessary” to do its job. The payment is taken from the Fed’s “combined earnings” up to a statutory cap tied to the Fed’s 2009 operating expenses and adjusted for inflation….