Republicans are Friends of Financial Fraud, Krugman Claims

Republicans are “determined to make America safe for financial fraud,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes in a piece entitled “Friends of Fraud.” Really?
 
A Nobel Prize winning professor, Krugman contends that the Republicans’ desire to alter the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the “one piece” of reform created by the Dodd-Frank law that Krugman says “was a shining example of how to do it right,” shows that they are against efforts to police financial fraud. 
 
Krugman explains that consumer financial protection is necessary because “fraud and abuse happen.” He believes that the Bureau “serves a vital function” and contends that Republicans are “trying to kill it.”
 
No matter one's political views, one must reasonably ask whether it is true that Republicans are friends of financial fraud and therefore are trying to “kill” the Bureau - or whether they are seeking to adjust its structure by changing it from an entity with one Director to something more like the SEC, with multiple commissioners.
 
There were many causes for the Financial Meltdown, and many people to blame. But it certainly is not clear that any party is friends of financial fraud.  Mr. Krugman should do better.