Republican Attacks on a CFPB Office Renovation Don't Add Up

When the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened in 2011, the government office space large enough to accommodate its thousand-plus employees that it moved into was a run-down concrete building on G Street near the White House that once housed the now-defunct Office of Thrift Supervision. The bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, has called the dark, musty structure a “dump.” The U.S. Department of the Treasury said the building, erected in 1976, was in need of “major renovations,” which the low rent reflected.

Three years later, the CFPB’s plans to fix up the place are under attack by Republicans who fought to block the agency’s creation and have tried since to weaken or kill it. Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, decries the renovation as a “blatant waste” of public money. The CFPB says it will cost about $140 million; Republicans predict it will come to much more.