Here we have one of politics' fun little ironies: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that brainchild (and I use the term "brain" in the broadest possible sense) of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is now being accused of targeting Native American tribes with a new and rather arbitrary rule.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

In November, Donald Trump overwhelmingly carried the Native American vote. By January, just six days before Trump took office, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a regulation that tribal leaders say isn’t legal and would harm the growing financial services industry on Indian lands.

At least four tribes are asking for the rule to be withdrawn, calling it an intrusion on tribal sovereignty and noting that tribes were never consulted. The latter point seemingly conflicted with President Joe Biden’s November 2022 pledge to bolster tribal consultations.

As online lending has grown as a tribal industry, in some cases, tribes have established their own financial regulatory agencies to police the businesses.

That's fine; the tribes, being quasi-autonomous organizations, are entitled to engage in business enterprises, like casinos, tax-free tobacco, and now financial services. But the CFPB doesn't see it that way.

On Jan. 13, the CFPB published a proposed rule prohibiting financial institutions from including provisions in contracts in which customers could “waive substantive consumer legal rights” under federal and state laws to sue. Currently, a company and customer can mutually consent to a contract based on the laws of a specific state or country.

As sovereign entities with their own governments, Native American tribes experience unique effects from federal regulations, argued Louis Taylor, chairman of Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Governing Board.

“Therefore, our Tribe is at a loss to understand why no consultation whatsoever took place with tribal governments in relation to the proposed rule,” Taylor wrote to the CFPB. “This is particularly troubling given that the parts of the proposed rule … appear to seek the imposition of state law and the enforcement of state law upon sovereign Indian nations. After hundreds of years of fighting against attempted state government encroachments, our tribe and others simply cannot let such an attack on tribal sovereignty stand.”

Simply put, the new regulation restricts the "choice of law" practice that enables parties to a financial agreement to determine which jurisdiction the agreement will be governed by.

Like, say, the tribal government. The tribal governments have little to no tax base, and their ability to tax is limited; they rely on enterprise for income. Now the CFPB is taking steps to restrict one such enterprise. The CFPB, it seems clear, didn't even ask 1/1024th of the tribal leaders for input on this rule.

Our native tribes have struggled with poverty for generations, and enterprise is the only way out of poverty. Why is the CFPB clamping down on one possible such enterprise? Well, that's the nature of an unaccountable bureaucracy; they never see a new rule or regulation they wouldn't enthusiastically enforce.

See Also: Fully DOGE Big Gov’s Financial Regulatory Regime—From The Fed on Down

House Conservatives Gear Up to Strike at Warren's Legacy With CFPB Rule Override

Honestly, the CFPB is an organization that never should have been created in the first place. There's no justification in the Constitution for its existence. There's no evidence that it has had any benefit for American citizens or the American economy. And if Senator Warren, of all people, can't see the irony in the institution she helped create now screwing over Native Americans, well, then there's no hope for her.

The CFPB has to go. It's well past time. This kind of crap will continue until it's gone.

Elon Musk and DOGE are bringing much-needed accountability to our out-of-control bureaucracy as they take a chainsaw to rampant waste, fraud, and abuse.

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