Add Mick Mulvaney to the List of Big Spenders With Other People’s Money

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

It appears that Scott Pruitt isn’t the only conservative who rails against overpaid bureaucrats unless they’re his overpaid bureaucrats:

Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s appointee to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has given big pay raises to the deputies he has hired to help him run the bureau, according to salary records obtained by The Associated Press. Mulvaney has hired at least eight political appointees since he took over the bureau in late November. Four of them are making $259,500 a year and one is making $239,595. That is more than the salaries of members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, and nearly all federal judges apart from those who sit on the Supreme Court.

….Kirsten Mork, Mulvaney’s chief of staff, got a significant bump in pay for going to work at the CFPB. She made $167,300 in her job working for Rep. Jeb Hensarling on the House Financial Services Committee, according to LegiStorm, a website that tracks congressional salary data. She now makes $259,500 as chief of staff of the CFPB, according to bureau records….Another former congressional staffer, Brian Johnson, who also worked for the House Financial Services Committee, made $164,600 in his role there before going to the CFPB, according to LegiStorm. He now makes $239,595 as a “senior advisor” to Mulvaney, a position that did not exist under Cordray.

Eric Blankenstein, who oversees supervision, enforcement and fair lending for the bureau, previously was a lawyer for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative making $153,730, according to federal salary data website FedSmith. He now makes $259,500, according to bureau records. Another Mulvaney appointee, Sheila Greenwood, who used to work in the Department of Housing and Urban Development making $179,700 a year, now makes $259,500. Anthony Welcher, who worked outside government before becoming a director of external affairs for the bureau, is also making $259,500 a year. His position also did not exist under the previous administration, according to bureau records.

I hardly even know how to react to this stuff anymore. The federal government under Trump is apparently just a big pot of spoils to be divvied up. Do any Republicans even care about this anymore?