If Rep. Scott Garrett has his way next year, the new congressionally mandated Consumer Federal Protection Bureau is toast.
Then again, the New Jersey Republican, the top GOP lawmaker on the House Financial Services capital markets subcommittee, understands it would be difficult to carry out such a move – even if his party takes the House -- and worries about other items on his agenda: covered bonds, and unraveling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"This administration does not want to work with us," he said in a recent sit-down interview with American Banker, a National Mortgage News affiliate. "So I don't see this being like Bill Clinton as far as triangulation or something like that going into 2012. These are not sexy issues, but on the ones that are the big ones, I tell people back home it's going to turn on whether the American public over the next 18 months, whether they stick with us, so we can push the president on some of these issues and then maybe we can be successful."
Garrett, who has been a member of the committee since coming to Congress in 2003, was elevated to serve as the top Republican on the capital markets subcommittee, which oversees the GSEs — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — at the beginning of 2009 by the full panel's ranking member, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala.
Garrett said he expects Bachus to chair the Financial Services Committee if Republicans take the House. Garrett said he would like to be able to guide the panel's housing policy, which he puts at the top of his agenda.
"I don't know what role I'm going to have," he said. "I'll hopefully be in a position to look at this because of the work I've done on this."
A Republican-led House would be more aggressive in tackling the matter, Garrett said.
