{"id":45827,"date":"2025-12-31T12:08:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T20:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45827"},"modified":"2025-12-31T12:08:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T20:08:17","slug":"judge-slaps-down-trump-administration-scheme-to-starve-nations-top-consumer-protection-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/31\/judge-slaps-down-trump-administration-scheme-to-starve-nations-top-consumer-protection-watchdog\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Slaps Down Trump Administration Scheme to \u2018Starve\u2019 Nation\u2019s Top Consumer Protection Watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Judge<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought speaks at the White House on Monday, September 29, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the CFPB is not there, people have nowhere to turn when they get cheated,\u201d said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 30, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump<\/a> and his administration have been openly plotting to scrap<\/a> the nation\u2019s top consumer protection watchdog, but a federal judge has at least temporarily put those plans on hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled<\/a> on Tuesday that the US Federal Reserve<\/a> must continue providing funds to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau<\/a> (CFPB<\/a>), rejecting the Trump administration\u2019s claims that the nation\u2019s central bank currently lacks the \u201ccombined earnings\u201d to fund the bureau\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Grave Danger\u2019: Warnings as Supreme Court Looks Ready to Hand Trump Even More Unchecked Power<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Russell<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

State AGs Sue Vought Over \u2018Unlawful\u2019 Scheme to Bankrupt Consumer Protection Bureau<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The administration had argued that the Federal Reserve should not be making payments to the CFPB because it has been operating at a loss since 2022, when it began a series of aggressive interest rate hikes aimed at taming inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Jackson rejected this reasoning and accused the administration of using it as a cover to defund an agency that the president and top officials such as Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget<\/a>, had long expressed a desire to abolish<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt appears that defendants\u2019 new understanding of \u2018combined earnings\u2019 is an unsupported and transparent attempt to starve the CPFB of funding,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The CFPB must now be funded at least until the DC Circuit of Appeals weighs in on an ongoing lawsuit brought by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) against Vought over layoffs at the agency that is scheduled for hearings in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NTEU took a victory lap in the wake of the ruling and taunted Vought for his defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYet another loss for Rusty Vought,\u201d the union posted<\/a> on Bluesky. \u201cWonder how much longer Donald is going to put up with this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it will continue to receive funding for the time being, the CFPB has still seen its ability to fulfill its mission severely diminished during Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Tuesday report<\/a> from Reuters<\/em> claimed that the CFPB is \u201con the brink of collapse\u201d given that the Trump administration<\/a>, congressional Republicans<\/a>, and industry lawsuits have \u201cundone a decade\u2019s worth of CFPB rules on matters ranging from medical debt and student loans to credit card late fees, overdraft charges and mortgage lending.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also noted that, during Trump\u2019s second term, the CFPB has \u201cdropped or paused its probes and enforcement actions, and stopped supervising the consumer finance industries, leading to a string of resignations\u201d at the agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D-Mass.), who first drew up plans to create the CFPB in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, explained the agency\u2019s importance in an interview with Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was stunned by the number of people in financial trouble who had lost a job or got sick but who had also been cheated by one or more of their creditors,\u201d she said. \u201cFor no agency was consumer protection a first priority, it was somewhere between fifth and 10th, which meant there was just no cop on the beat. If the CFPB is not there, people have nowhere to turn when they get cheated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought speaks at the White House on Monday, September 29, 2025. \u00a0(Photo by Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) \u201cIf the CFPB is not there, people have nowhere to turn when they get cheated,\u201d said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Brad Reed Dec 30,… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45827"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45828,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45827\/revisions\/45828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}