Young Tech Staff, Red Tape Realities Tangle at DC's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The Washington Post's Suzy Khimm posted recently about young, tech-believing staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and their work experiences at the Obama-created federal office. It's an intriguing piece, depicting how true believers in the web, data-driven solutions, and supposed benefits of tech "efficiency" navigate the presumed "inefficiencies" of bureaucratic regulation and accepted ways of doing things. Some of the staffers' backgrounds are not typical of wonky Washington, although that's not really the point of Khimm's story. (By the way, her post's headline is eye-catching but misleading.)

The CFPB, spawned partly as a response to the 2008 financial disaster, has been controversial since its inception. (The oddity of this link is that Khimm connected to a New York Times thumbnail of the bureau and its history.) Most corporate institutions didn't and don't want it around, as CFPB broke the chokehold of cozy relationships between legislators, corporate interests, and lobbyists. To that end, the GOP waged a somewhat successful war against President Obama's choice to run the office, Elizabeth Warren. Romney-Ryan, if elected, will almost certainly kill CFPB as soon as possible. If that happens, will these staffers believe government can be "transformed"? And if so, how? After all, the right-wing wants to "transform" Washington, too.