Saturday, December 15, 2018

Speaking of Mulvaney

Here's a May 7, 2018, New York Times article assessing what Mulvaney had been doing since November 2017 when he was installed as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
[H]e has halted all new investigations, frozen hiring, stopped data collection and proposed cutting off public access to a database of consumer complaints. He dropped most cases against payday lenders — a primary focus of the consumer bureau — and also proposed scrapping a new rule that would have heightened scrutiny of an industry accused of trapping vulnerable customers in a cycle of debt. And he has tried hard to persuade Congress to take away funding authority for the bureau from the Federal Reserve — so that Congress can cut it.

[...]

[H]e has been prodding Mr. Trump to demand a symbolic $20 billion to $30 billion in cuts to social programs and the State Department’s foreign aid budget, according to an administration official with knowledge of his plans.

[...]

He works [at CFPB] no more than two or three days a week, a few hours at a time, and seldom on Saturdays, as he initially suggested he would do.

[...]

Gary D. Cohn, then the chairman of Mr. Trump’s National Economic Council, lobbied for Mr. Mulvaney, his sometimes golf partner [to get the position at CFPB]. Mr. Mulvaney leapt at the chance, arguing that he would be aggressive in dismantling the bureau, according to an administration official.

[...]

Mr. Mulvaney, a hypercompetitive golfer with an 8 handicap, is determined to prevail while maintaining he is strictly adhering to dictates of the law. In his view, that means giving equal weight to reducing “burdensome regulations” on the industries he regulates, as he described his approach to a meeting of lenders last month.

[...]

Mr. Trump, several administration aides said, is delighted at the idea of [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren watching an institution she spent years building being undermined from within — and eager to see Mr. Mulvaney continue waging a battle to reduce federal regulations through the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. Trump was so intent on changing the consumer bureau’s direction that he planned to fire Mr. Cordray as soon as he became president, but he was talked out of it by advisers. They pointed out that under the statute creating the agency, the president can remove the bureau’s director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance,” and advised that he wait to make a recess appointment.

Mr. Trump did not like waiting. At one point last summer, he instructed the White House operator to call Mr. Cordray so he could fire him but was talked down by John F. Kelly, according to two former administration officials. In late November, Mr. Cordray resigned and installed his deputy, Leandra English, as acting director. That set off a scramble within the White House to shove Ms. English aside.

[...]

Sometimes it is telling too much truth that has gotten Mr. Mulvaney into trouble. Last month, he breezily informed a conference of 1,300 bankers and their lobbyists that he had a standing rule in his congressional office: “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you.”

[...]

During a pre-inauguration tour of the offices, Mr. Mulvaney skipped policy questions and instead asked about the gym and whether there was a place to sleep in his office. When they got to the White House mess hall, he was unimpressed with the tacos, telling his predecessor, Shaun Donovan, the meal did not measure up to the Mexican restaurants he once owned in Charlotte, N.C., according to a person to whom Mr. Donovan related the encounter.

  NYT
Trump and Mulvaney should get along famously. Unless they're TOO much alike.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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