TABS Act of 2025
Key claim: The TABS Act of 2025 would restructure the CFPB into an independent ‘Consumer Financial Empowerment Agency’ outside the Federal Reserve System, funded by congressional appropriations rather than Fed transfers.
Abstract
(HR654 · 119th Congress) Taking Account of Bureaucrats’ Spending Act of 2025 or the TABS Act of 2025 This bill restructures the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and renames it as the Consumer Financial Empowerment Agency. The new agency is established as an independent agency outside of the Federal Reserve System. The bill also changes the funding structure of the agency by prohibiting the transfer of funds to the agency from the Federal Reserve System and by authorizing congressional appropriations for FY2026-FY2027. Latest action (2025-01-23): Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Why this matters
The TABS Act would fundamentally alter the CFPB’s institutional design by stripping its Federal Reserve funding stream and subjecting it to annual congressional appropriations — a longstanding target of critics who argue the bureau’s self-funding mechanism insulates it from political accountability. For consumers and regulated financial firms, appropriations dependence would likely mean more variable enforcement capacity and greater congressional leverage over supervisory priorities. As introduced legislation early in the 119th Congress, it signals the direction of statutory reform efforts running alongside constitutional challenges to independent-agency structure.