This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, September 29th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already been found by one federal court to be unconstitutionally

structured.

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter believes the agency should simply go away.

We spoke this week. Why do you say that CFPB is unconstitutionally structured?

Clearly you're agreeing with a court that's already found that to be basically the case, but why do you see it that way?

And we've actually filed an amicus brief in that case to ensure that that decision is upheld and is enforced.

So putting one person in charge of a mammoth state agency, given that person almost unbridled power over the

monitoring and supervision of how banks interact with their customers, how financial institutions interact

with their customers is not democracy.

It's a dictatorship.

And giving that person the ability to decide what the budget of the CFPB is without there being

advised and consent of Congress undermines and violates separation of powers.

One of the most fundamental elements of the Constitution is the power that Congress has,

the power of the purse.

So let me ask you this as a related question.

To whom is CFPB accountable?

Well as far as I'm concerned they're accountable to no one. The only way that a

CFPB director can be accountable is when he or she reaches the end of her term.

Because while they serve, they have to essentially violate a crime

in order to be subject to removal.

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