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The only beneficiaries from DoddFrank have been Washington bureaucrats, who have grown more powerful; and big banks have only grown bigger at the expense of your personal freedoms and your freedom to make your own financial decisions. Dodd-Frank has failed the American people. Instead, the CHOICE Act, which stands for creating hope and opportunity for investors, consumers, and entrepreneurs, represents a better way from this Republican Congress that will provide Americans with the financial opportunities that they deserve. The CHOICE Act is about helping Main Street, not Wall Street, and will increase lending in our communities, open up our economy, end taxpayerfunded bank bailouts, and hold Wall Street and Washington accountable. It will allow us to impose the toughest penalties on Wall Street executives who engage in fraud, deception, and self-dealing. Unlike before, executives who commit financial crimes will be held accountable, rather than innocent taxpayers and shareholders. Americans deserve relief from the regulatory burden and lack of financial options that Dodd-Frank has created. Americans deserve the ‘‘Right’’ CHOICE Act. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 10. Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. MOORE), who is the ranking member of the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee. Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the ‘‘Wrong’’ CHOICE Act. This is a bad bill, and I suspect that Republicans are pushing it through with only one hearing because they want to push it past the beleaguered public who lost trillions of dollars of wealth and home value during the last recession. Republicans’ rubric about freedom and community banks is not fooling anyone. This legislation unleashes every bloodthirsty and greedy Wall Street superpredator back into the American people to feast on our misery like they did pre-Dodd-Frank. In contrast, you will actually hear the GOP blame predatory borrowers and say that they caused the crisis—like blaming hungry children for famines. If this bill passes with the mere 10 percent capital requirements, the financial system will become brittle, prone to systemic crisis and taxpayer bailouts—a system that is less fair and rife with fraud. Didn’t we learn our lesson in 2008? 2008 taught us that we cannot have sustainable economic growth absent good regulation. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this bad bill. Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. BARR), who is the chairman of the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee.
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Mr. BARR. Mr. Chairman, the DoddFrank Act is a failure, period. It is estimated to reduce economic output by nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years, and it contains more regulatory restrictions than all of the other regulations enacted by the previous administration combined, including ObamaCare. The Financial CHOICE Act provides an off-ramp—much-needed relief—to Dodd-Frank’s growth-crushing regulations. Financial institutions like community banks and credit unions will have the choice to stay under the Dodd-Frank regulatory regime or opt for the relief that they are willing to obtain if they meet a 10 percent simple leverage ratio, a level that ensures that they can weather economic downturns without the help of taxpayer bailouts. This legislation also reins in the primary culprit of the regulatory onslaught that has caused one in five community financial institutions in my State of Kentucky to close: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is done by giving Congress the power of the purse over the Bureau for the first time, making its Director removable by the President, requiring it to conduct cost-benefit analysis, and enhancing its mission to focus on consumer protection through competition and choice. This legislation also delivers important regulatory relief to community financial institutions, incorporating the TAILOR Act, which requires Federal regulators to tailor their regulations based on the size of financial institutions instead of using the typical onesize-fits-all Washington model. Additionally, the Financial CHOICE Act ends stifling Dodd-Frank regulations that constrain lending for manufactured homes by including the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act. It also further reduces the chances of a mortgage crisis by giving financial firms an incentive to retain 100 percent of a mortgage’s risk and greater flexibility to lend by including my Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act. Finally, this legislation places the steepest penalties in history on financial firms that actually break our laws. So it ends too big to fail, it includes tough penalties—the toughest penalties in history—for financial fraud and other misdeeds, but it preserves consumer protections through competition, choice, and access to the credit Americans need to build our economy. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman HENSARLING for his leadership on this issue. Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I have just got to stop some of this misrepresentation. Exempt from CFPB’s supervision and enforcement, Wall Street reform—that is Dodd-Frank—recognizes community banks and credit unions have a small number of employees and a better consumer protection track record; thus,
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they are carved out from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s supervision. b 1315 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s supervision and enforcement focuses on the largest banks that they won’t talk about here today and nonbanks that compete with small banks and credit unions. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. MEEKS), a senior member of the Financial Services Committee. Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Chair, how soon do we forget? The bill before us today is an affront to the American people. This bill is fatally flawed. It would set America up for more severe financial crises in the future. It is plain and simply the wrong choice. Let me give you one example. Under the ‘‘Wrong’’ CHOICE Act, many banks would be free from regulatory oversight if they merely maintain a 10 percent leverage ratio. Let’s break that down for the American people. If this bill was law in 2008, one-third of the banks that eventually failed would be free from regulatory oversight altogether. To be clear, 125 banks that failed during the crisis would meet the bill’s low requirement for regulatory relief, not according to me, but to an independent clearinghouse analysis. You don’t have to be a financier to realize that this proposal is dangerous and an insult to American families who lost nearly everything. I am talking about those families in rural and urban America who saw their household net worth drop $10 million, the largest loss of wealth in the history of the United States of America. Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. MCCARTHY), a gentleman on leave from the Financial Services Committee and one we proudly call our own. Mr. MCCARTHY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, I first want to thank Chairman HENSARLING and the entire Financial Services Committee for the work they have done on this bill. They have listened to Members and they have listened to constituents throughout this country. They studied the issue and they found the very best policy. We all know we need economic growth, but we also know that growth means little if wages will not rise, if jobs do not return, and if more businesses close than open. If a rising tide lifts all boats, we need to make sure every American is in the boat. Repealing Dodd-Frank with the Financial CHOICE Act lifts people back in so they can participate in America’s economy. It will reestablish the severed ties that link communities to the money they need to start businesses and hire employees.
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