Today, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-3) questioned Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra on his mismanagement of the agency and attempts to expand his power as a regulator.

Watch the full clip HERE.

Rep. Luetkemeyer: “Taken together, we’re looking at massive losses of revenue coupled with very large additional costs of compliance. All of this results in higher costs, fewer banking services for consumers, and fewer financial institutions to provide those services – all while giving the government more control over our personal finances.

So, it begs the question: At what point can we just publicly recognize that you and the administration believe financial services should be a utility offered to the public by the government?”

Director Chopra: “Well, nothing we have said has suggested that. We want a lot of competing financial firms.”

Rep. Luetkemeyer: “What’s happening is the regulation is running downhill and choking small institutions.”

Background: Several attempts to illegally expand the bureau’s power have already failed in court.

The CFPB attempted to reinterpret the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which relates to housing applicants, as extending to individuals before they apply for a mortgage. A District Court in Chicago struck down the overreach in February of this year.

More recently, a federal judge in Texas recently issued a final judgement against the CFPB for unlawfully expanding its authority when updating the UDAAP manual. The updates included directions for its employees to scrutinize companies for unspecific and subjective standards of anti-discrimination. Left unchecked, the CFPB would grant itself the ability to pick winners and losers in our economy, an offensive proposition to our free market principles.