House Financial Services Committee Cites HUD, CFPB Cuts As Keys To Passing Trump Tax Bill

Rep. French Hill (Ark.), who began chairing the committee this year, delivered remarks to the House Committee on Rules on Wednesday morning. He offered insights into the contributions of the Financial Services Committee as Congress closes in on a Memorial Day deadline to pass the high-stakes budget bill.

“A few weeks ago, the House Financial Services Committee completed the work assigned to us under the budget resolution that Congress adopted in early April,” Hill said. “The resolution asked us to decrease the deficit by at least $1 billion over the 2025-2034 period.”

To reach that goal, Hill cited two particular actions related to HUD and the CFPB.

“We rescinded remaining unobligated balances with the [HUD] Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP), created under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” he said. “We put a firm cap on the [CFPB]’s budget, setting its funding at no more than $249 million for 2025, with an annual adjustment for inflation going forward.”

Prior reporting suggested that the GRRP had been canceled by HUD at the direction of the U.S. DOGE Service, the government cost-cutting effort inside the White House led by billionaire Elon Musk.

Last month, a judge unfroze these funds. But the attempted cancellation of programs by DOGE is likely on a different track than an effort by Congress about where and how to appropriate federal funding.

Hill also detailed that the CFPB’s Civil Penalty Fund — which provides money to those who have been harmed by companies that break federal consumer financial protection laws — will “be transferred to the Treasury general fund” once direct victims are compensated.

According to the bureau, the penalty fund is statutorily established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the law that created the CFPB.

The committee also made other rollbacks to certain entities’ authority to collect regulatory fees. It “capped the assessments collected by the Office of Financial Research” and prioritized the return of other unspent funds to the Department of the Treasury.

“I’m pleased to report that the Financial Services Committee exceeded our instruction, and (the Congressional Budget Office) estimates the deficit would decrease by $5.2 billion,” Hill said. “During our markup, we spent over nine hours debating our portion of this reconciliation bill.”

Hill went on to say that the committee “considered all 40 amendments” that were put forward by Democratic members “and did not limit the minority’s ability to propose modifications to the underlying legislative text.”

Hill concluded his comments by arguing that a mandate for “fiscal responsibility” is what swept Republicans into power in the 2024 election. He warned of severe financial consequences if the nation could not “get its fiscal house in order.”

But economic volatility contributed to Moody’s recent decision to lower the U.S. debt rating. This has raised concerns that investors could pull back on engaging with U.S. government bonds and that stocks will be negatively impacted, according to reporting from Reuters.

Reports from political outlets including The Hill and Politico stated that House Republican leaders could be facing a last-minute “revolt” among fiscal hard-liners, which could derail an attempt to bring the budget bill to the floor of the chamber on Wednesday.