Although he is the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Mick Mulvaney does not believe the agency should even exist.
To that end, Bloomberg reports that Mulvaney is considering moving staff members to the basement of their building and to other states.
Such options are being proposed by his top aides as Mulvaney seeks to cut spending at the Republican-loathed watchdog by tens of millions of dollars, according to an internal cost-savings analysis that was obtained by Bloomberg News. Another budget-trimming idea: making employees share desks. [...]
Adding 70 work spaces in the basement of the CFPB’s main Washington building may save $16.6 million, and relocating staff to Dallas would decrease spending by $2.4 million. Other ideas in the one-page document include moving workers to offices in Northern Virginia or the Maryland suburbs, though doing so is actually estimated to increase costs.
As you may or may not know, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not funded by taxpayers or Congress. The agency is funded by the Federal Reserve and the fed is funded by currency investments and interest.
Mick Mulvaney is not saving anyone money and I think it would be foolish to believe that's his real goal. The goal is to make working at the agency undesirable for career officials who actually believe in its mission. The goal is to make the agency irrelevant so it can be shuttered.
I don't think it would be a stretch to say the only reason the bureau has not already been shut down is because Democrats in the Senate could filibuster any attempt to do so.