Well, in Mulvaney’s other job n the administration, he's also advocated CFPB be disbanded, so when he talks about understanding the job, it's about understanding how to dismantle it entirely, not how to do it effectively.

Same story at the EPA and other agencies. I believe the agenda was summarized as "deconstruction of the administrative state".

I mean, scaling back or disbanding the federal government has been the GOP's dream for the past 50 years. It also strengthens the argument that "government doesn't work" because they made government not work.

People blame Trump but this has been a conservative agenda item for decades.

Trump did appointed some of loudest voices against those departments to lead them so he's pretty much responsible.

Trump is just parroting fox and friends, which is basically how the government works now apparently. Fox -> Trump -> Fox

Agreed. The only thing Trump didn't do was appoint a pacifist as Secretary of Defense.

outsidetheparty can correct me, but I feel that outsidetheparty forgot to end their comment with a /s

No, no, it's absolutely true: literally every time I personally have been put in charge of a major department or agency, the very first thing I do is just, you know, lock the doors for a month or so. Let the place have a good airing out. Everyone can come back to the office fresh once I've had a good look around, picked my chair, found out where the best coffee machine is... you know how it is

My sarcasm detection browser extension predicts 96% probability of sarcasm in the comment.

Sure, I don't doubt your ability but have you read the responses? It doesn't seem like they realize it was sarcasm.

and just a reminder: he went to court to take this job from some one who already knew what she was doing.

He also requested this year's [edit: sorry, quarter] operating funds be $0.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/mulvaney-funding-c...

Not exactly - just for the quarter. "Mulvaney wrote that the bureau has $177 million in the bank, enough to cover the $145 million the bureau has budgeted for its second quarter."

Thanks, you're right. I've edited.

it's unfortunately not the top response to jeremy but apparently no they don't have 177 million in the bank.

The misinformation here is ridiculous. The operating budget request for zero dollars was because they collected so much in fines last year that it will pay the entire year’s budget.

The next time you get a speeding ticket, ask yourself if you want public institutions to be financed by fees and fines.

Why?

It creates perverse incentives (ex. http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/investigates/exclusive-judge-..., https://www.caranddriver.com/features/town-without-pity), even more so than taxes, which typically have multiple layers of oversight on spending.

Unlike taxes, fines and fees in the US are not adjusted for income, so they hurt poorer people much more than wealthier people (ex. http://time.com/3182726/if-you-want-to-see-inequality-in-the...).

If you're already struggling financially, being forced to pony up 30% of this month's net revenue just to keep some public agency afloat so it can fine and fee more people later is the kind of bad break that kills people (https://www.thecut.com/2016/12/america-is-failing-the-bad-br...).

It's cruel and unjust and it has no place in America.

Because it creates an organization that deviates from its purported mission, abusing the public trust instead of serving a common need.

The self-funded USPTO has a bias toward approving bad patents to generate revenue and consequently enables the predatory behavior of NPEs. It becomes a net detriment to society.

Does USPTO make more money if it approves patents? I thought you paid the submission fee whether it's approved or not.

If it rejected 99.9% of patents, the expected value of the typical application drops to 1/1000 its current value. So fewer people would pay the application fee.

Fewer patent clerks would be needed, so their operating costs would also decrease. But presumably not below 1/1000.

If it gets a reputation for being stricter on granting patents, a lot of people won't waste their time or money in submissions that are likely to be rejected.

I may be mistaken, but I believe patent renewal fees are a thing, and more expensive than the application

The USPTO does not primarily deal with law enforcement.

An example of where it goes wrong:

https://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/343143937/in-ferguson-court-f...

> To understand some of the distrust of police that has fueled protests in Ferguson, Mo., consider this: In 2013, the municipal court in Ferguson — a city of 21,135 people — issued 32,975 arrest warrants for nonviolent offenses, mostly driving violations.

> A new report released the week after 18-year old Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson helps explain why. ArchCity Defenders, a St. Louis-area public defender group, says in its report that more than half the courts in St. Louis County engage in the "illegal and harmful practices" of charging high court fines and fees on nonviolent offenses like traffic violations — and then arresting people when they don't pay. The report singles out courts in three communities, including Ferguson.

Because it's a very plausible risk for incentive misalignment. If the department has a role outside of people doing finable activities but is only financed through catching finable activities, false positives are strongly incentivized.

The alternative would have been either no appropriation out of congress or an appropriation beholden to the evildoers, which is kind of where we are now anyway with Mulvaney running the wrecking crew.

Because enforcing the law to make money is obscene.

That doesn't sound like an analogous situation, though.

It is though. The CFPB has to be able to impose fines large enough to balk the largest financial players in one of the largest economies in the world.

Imagine if the cop that writes your speeding ticket gets paid on commission...

But if that then becomes an incentive for self-dealing, it is very problematic. Instead that money should go directly to citizens in the form of remediation and barring that, deficit paydown or underfunded government services (the VA comes to mind...)

Fining crooks like Equifax seems like a decent way to start funding a universal basic income. Call it a "white collar crime tax."

I wouldn't complain if that was the outcome. But I might also imaging using the fines cross-agency like giving the FDA more operating budget to pursue cross-state food safety issues.

In that situation, the only funds for those agencies would come from fines. We're not at that situation.

And I'm all in favor of the CFPB getting pretty heavy handed. I wanna see some Enron style prosecutions start.

> The operating budget request for zero dollars was because they collected so much in fines last year that it will pay the entire year’s budget.

That sounds like misinformation, considering their website says they're explicitly forbidden from doing that.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/payments-harmed-con...

> When the Bureau collects a civil penalty through an enforcement action, that penalty is deposited into the Civil Penalty Fund. The money in the Fund is pooled and can be used to compensate victims who haven’t received full compensation for their harm through redress paid by the defendant in their case.

> In accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act and the Bureau's Civil Penalty Fund rule, the Fund can only be used for two purposes: to compensate eligible harmed consumers and, to the extent that victim payments are not practicable, to provide funding for consumer education and financial literacy programs. If victims cannot be located or it is otherwise not practicable to pay victims, the Bureau may keep the money in the Fund for victims in future cases, or the Bureau may use money in the Fund for consumer education and financial literacy programs.

[citation needed]

The GOP has been out to destroy the CFPB since the day it was started. This is them winning.

Majority of the voters probably don't understand the severity of the situation or just don't care. This is what gives the courage for politicians and bureaucrats to pull shenanigans like this.

Sure if you don't think the department should exist, or at least not exist in the with the same scope or scale as before.

Being in charge of something doesn't mean you have to be a proponent of expanding it or even maintaining it in its current form. Being in charge for a dismantling is common place as well.