The Trial Balance is CFO.com’s weekly preview of stories, stats and events to help you prepare.
Part 1 — CFPB leader sued by union for telling employees not to work pending a DOGE audit
As the federal government undergoes spending audits by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the CFPB’s Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought has been sued by his employees’ labor union after allegedly instructing some 1,200 employees to halt their work. DOGE is looking to take similar action against the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. Agency for International Development, as it did last week.
The lawsuits against Vought came in a pair — one seeking to block DOGE’s access to CFPB information and the other stemming from his alleged directive for staffers to stop working. The suit says his decision “reflects an unlawful attempt to thwart Congress’s decision to create the CFPB to protect American consumers.”
The CFPB has been previously accused of operating unlawfully. In June there was a heated debate between Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana and recently fired CFPB Chair Rohit Chopra over the differences between revenues and earnings. Kennedy confronted Chopra on the agency’s legal right to funding, which he argued was null.
Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB receives a portion of Federal Reserve earnings. As the CFPB’s statute states, it is entitled to earnings from the Federal Reserve, which has operated at a loss since 2022. With no earnings available, the CFPB should have lost its funding then. Though the Supreme Court has ruled that its operational structure is legal, the dissenting opinion by Justice Alito stated that it “thwarts the framers’ separation of powers design.”
Part 2 — This week
Here’s a list of important market events slated for the week ahead.
Monday, Feb. 10 — None scheduled
Tuesday, Feb. 11
- NFIB optimism index, Jan.
Wednesday, Feb. 12
- Consumer price index, Jan.
- Core CPI, Jan.
- Monthly U.S. federal budget, Jan.
Thursday, Feb. 13
- Initial jobless claims, week of Feb. 8
- Producer price index, Jan.
- Core PPI, Jan.
Friday, Feb. 14
- Import price index, Jan.
- U.S. retail sales, Jan.
- Industrial production, Jan.
- Business inventories, Dec.
Part 3 — Controlling cost, Little Words Project Q&A, Valentine’s Day
This week, CFO.com will have stories on controlling cost, a Q&A with Little Words Project vice president of finance Brian Roddy, a new 6 a.m. CFO edition with Auston Loeffler of Delmar Mortgage, a special CFO Valentine’s Day story and more.
