Is the CFPB Doomed to Fail?

The front page of today’s American Banker (subscription required) shows their headline writers having some fun (perhaps too many CFPB related articles has them looking to keep things fresh?) There are three articles highlighted in today’s daily briefing:

1. Pit-Bull Republicans Just Won’t Let Go of CFPB Chew-Toy;
2. House GOP Wants CFPB to Stop Collecting Certain Data, and;
3. The Only Place in America That’s Hiring

Headline fun and games aside, this collection of articles really points to something that should be clear to folks right now–the CFPB is in for a long, hard slog. The Senate GOP might not sue over Director Cordray’s nomination, but Republicans in the House and Senate have made it clear that they’re going to watch the CFPB like a hawk and if control of the Senate changes hands next year, life could get even more difficult.

Matt Yglesias, writing from his new Moneybox perch at Slate, thinks that CFPB is doomed to fail:

In this context, I think the issue is that there just aren’t any socially, economically, or politically influential actors who want civilian aviation to be unsafe. Airlines know that the public’s irrational fear of airplanes is a business problem for them and so despite disagreements around the margin embrace the goal of making air travel safe. Financial regulators operate in a very different context where there are plenty of socially, economically, and politically influential actors who don’t want macroprudential regulation to be done properly. Given that, we’re not going to get it done properly.

It’s a provocative thought, and certainly the strucuture of the agency (one director, chosen by the sitting President every five years) is going to lend itself to some real ups and downs over time. That means that folks who care about getting it done properly are going to have to be on their toes, and for a long time to come. But as the Banker says, tactics are beginning to shift and Senate Republicans spent most of their recent hearing inquiring about the way the CFPB is doing it’s business, not the legitimacy of the Bureau itself,  and perhaps that’s reason to be optimistic that in the long run, the job will get done properly?