Congress moves to eliminate the CFPB's entire budget
S. 303 — Defund the CFPB Act · Filed by Ted Cruz (R-TX) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 29, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Consumer Financial Protection Act to cap the CFPB Director's annual funding request at $0, effectively eliminating the agency's budget. It strikes the existing language that allowed the Director to request funds based on the Bureau's needs and replaces it with a hard zero, then removes two paragraphs that previously governed the funding process.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a direct budget elimination — it replaces the CFPB Director's funding authority with a $0 cap. This is functionally a defunding bill, not a technical amendment. The title accurately describes what it does.
What the text implies
- The CFPB currently operates on a self-funded model (drawing from Federal Reserve earnings rather than congressional appropriations); this bill may require statutory amendment to that mechanism as well, or may create ambiguity about whether the Bureau can operate at all.
- Existing CFPB enforcement actions, rulemaking, and complaint processing would cease or be severely curtailed; pending cases and regulations could be abandoned or frozen.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
payday lenders; mortgage servicers; debt collectors