Mick Mulvaney will seek a 20 percent cut in funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency he leads, to bring funding back to the 2015 level.
“I’ve asked them to run through the experiment of reducing spending by 20 percent,” Mulvaney said of his staff Tuesday. “And we’re very close to finalizing that.”
Such a reduction would bring the agency’s budget to less than $490 million, Mulvaney said.
He also said the bureau is set to request $65.7 million from the Federal Reserve for funding for the last quarter of the fiscal year. That would bring the total request to about $381 million, down from $602 the year before. That figure, though, reflects that Mulvaney requested no funding in a previous quarter on the grounds that the agency already had funds available to pay the bills.
The CFPB receives its funding from the Federal Reserve. Mulvaney has asked Congress to pass legislation so that the agency is instead funded by congressional appropriations, a change that would give lawmakers oversight over the bureau.
Mulvaney is also the director of the Office of Management and Budget and has promoted big spending cuts to agencies in that role, although Congress instead has legislated increases.
President Trump faces a deadline next week to nominate a replacement for Mulvaney, who serves as director in an acting capacity.
[Also read: CFPB says it is investigating companies under Mick Mulvaney]
