Here's what I want: rhetorical questions. Should federal agencies have slash funds? “Slush Fund” means a pot of money that a Congress, department, department, or program can use even if Congress doesn't want it.
I hope Democrats and Republicans agree that it's a bad thing as well.
When President Trump asked me to take over as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency in 2017, I thought it was back. I had heard that my predecessor, Richard Cordray, had dumped money in case Republicans found a way to use the power of their wallets to curb the Rebellion Bureau.
To understand how he did it, you need quick primers in a unique way that CFPB funded. It doesn't get money from Congress, but rather essentially from allowances from the Federal Reserve. And while there is a cap on how much it will be each year, CAPs are linked to the Fed's revenue, not how much money it will actually cost to run the bureau.
Significantly, allowances are set by the director of the CFPB (the group where the group makes money) and by the Fed (the group that provides money). And as long as the allowance is below the limit, there's nothing the Fed or Congress can do about it.
That's why we needed a code ray of $100 million to run CFPB in a given quarter. He might have asked for it. But he could also ask for more, no matter what his hat was.
I remember that I could literally write to Congress as an acting director, “Delivery $400 million to CFPB” on a napkin, and when I took the napkin, they testified that they needed to deliver the funds. . Even if I really don't need the money.
When I arrived at CFPB in late 2017, I learned that the “surplus funds” held in the bureau's account would reach $177 million. That's the excess that code rays have accumulated. That was the Slash Fund.
I decided to release the funds by not asking the Fed for the money to run the bureau. We thought we didn't need new funds, and we certainly didn't need the slash fund.
Last week, CFPB's new acting director, Russ Vought, fast forward when he again requested zero dollars from the Fed and charged the business. In doing so, he sheds the Thrash Fund a terrible and necessary light.
Apparently, former director Rohit Chopra made Cordray look like Penny Pincher and built a $711 million slash fund.
I hope I'm the next rhetorical question.
If you want to know what Doge is actually about – if you want to know that conservatives have been complaining about their deep state for years, look for more than that Slush Fund. It also reveals something about what the next four years will look like under Trump.
Lass praised him not to ask for money. Elon Musk's praise for the Doge Operation has made government restructuring, civil service reform and boring policies of operational efficiency public. And praise Trump for letting both men do their jobs.
I'll admit that I enjoyed the similarities between how they handled the CFPB Slush Fund seven years ago and how Vought handled this week. But I feel that Vought, Doge and Trump will have an opportunity to do more.
Ultimately, experiences with USAID and CFPB seem to suggest that abuse taxpayer trust is the rule and is no exception in Washington. Certainly, wherever they see, they seem to find something that makes more and more people wonder.
We did some of that in the first Trump administration. But without the support of Republican Congress leaders and indeed part of our own Cabinet, we would not have been able to achieve it well.
I feel that this time is different.
Mark Twain has been praised for “history does not repeat itself, but often rhymes.” If that is certainly the case, then it would seem that the second stanza of the Trump presidency would be much more productive than the first.
Mick Mulbany, a former South Carolina lawmaker, is a News Nation contributor. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and Chief of Staff of the White House under President Donald Trump.
