Ignore Carping: Let Warren Run Consumer Agency

Some powerful forces are lining up to ensure that Elizabeth Warren isn’t chosen to head the Consumer Protection Financial Agency, which is absurd, writes David Weidner of the Wall Street Journal, because “there really is no other choice.” Warren invented and championed the whole idea of the CPFA. Appointing anyone else “would be like letting Steve Jobs come up with the iPad and then giving it to Microsoft Corp. to market.”

Banks fighting her nomination say she’ll be too tough, and drive up costs for customers, but Weidner thinks those charges “are really trumped-up.” In Warren’s own words, “The protection agency is about people understanding credit agreements. It’s no fancier than that. It isn’t bigger or crazier than that.” That simple focus is the reason Warren must run the agency. The only potential problem? She might not want to. “I hate Washington,” she tells Weidner. “There are days I wake up and say, ‘OK, I could go to Washington, or I could stab myself in the eye.” (More Elizabeth Warren stories.)