Why Is Obama Stockpiling Your Personal Financial Records? IBD Editorial | June 6, 2014 Diversity Police: Republicans are scratching their heads over the Obama regime's privacy-invading "National Mortgage Database Project." What's it for? That's easy: redistribution of wealth. In an unprecedented federal intrusion, the president's most radical financial regulators — Mel Watt of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Richard Cordray of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — are creating a massive discrimination database on as many as 230 million Americans. It will encompass a mortgage holde... Read More »
Committee Examines the Dangers of FSOC’s Designation Process On Tuesday, the full committee held a hearing to examine the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) designation process for deeming banks and non-bank firms as “systemically important” and the impact of such designations. "FSOC was established—or so its supporters tell us—to make it easier for regulators to communicate and share information with each other. But the regulators didn’t need an act of Congress to do that, and information-sharing is not what FSOC is really about. Instead, FSOC is about one thing: increasing Washin... Read More »
“It is easy reverse engineer and identify the people in our database.” “At present we are allowed to have any federal employee gain access” to the database. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling and Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo this week sent a letter to the CFPB and FHFA raising serious privacy concerns about the massive federal mortgage database the two agencies are creating. A recent notice in the Federal Register outlined how expansive the agencies’ database will be. Specifically, the notice proposes to vastly expand the scope of their data collec... Read More »
CLICK HERE TO WATCH Last week, the Financial Services Committee met to take up a number of strategies designed to spur job growth. Watch Rep. Mick Mulvaney (Twitter|Facebook) discuss those ideas and more in this week's FSC Video Message. Read More »
On Wednesday, the full committee marked up several bills designed to grow the economy, create jobs, and relieve the regulatory burden for community financial institutions. "We received some bad news recently that more than 800,000 Americans, almost a million, left the workforce last month alone. Many simply could not find a job to make ends meet, no matter how hard they tried. Millions of others remain out of work. The latest economic figures show that during the first quarter of this year the economy slowed to a stall, with a barely discernable 0.1 percent annual growth rate," said Chairman J... Read More »
Committee Holds SEC Accountable On Tuesday, the full committee held an oversight hearing with SEC Chair Mary Jo White to discuss the Commission's agenda, operations, and 2015 budget. "The SEC’s budget has grown substantially in recent years. In fact, the SEC’s budget has increased by 80 percent in the last 10 years and by nearly 300 percent since the year 2000. I again note that when my Democratic colleagues were in the majority even after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, they never called for the dramatic budget increases they call for now," said Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). "Not many o... Read More »
Republicans and Democrats on the House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee voted 20-0 to subpoena two CFPB officials and a union representative as part of its ongoing investigation into allegations of discrimination and retaliation at the Bureau. Wall Street Journal: House Panel Votes to Subpoena CFPB Officials An investigative subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee voted 20-0 on Tuesday to send subpoenas to three CFPB officials, drawing support from Republicans and Democrats. Under the financial panel's rules, the subcommittee is allowed to authorize s... Read More »
On Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. the Full Committee will hold a hearing to examine the economic consequences of recent rulemaking, supervisory, and enforcement actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on consumers, community financial institutions, the U.S. economy, and our domestic job-creating businesses. On Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. the Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee will hold a hearing to discus... Read More »
The House is in session Tuesday through Friday this week. Here’s what’s happening: On Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will hold a hearing to examine allegations of discrimination and retaliation within the CFPB. Committee staff has received corroborating information from a CFPB employee who alleges she has experienced gender discrimination and retaliation for filing an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint with the CFPB’s Human Capital Office. The CFPB retained an outside investigator to examine the whistleblower’s claims. The investigator confirmed the w... Read More »
Committee Holds First in a Series of Hearings on the Impact of the National Debt On Tuesday, the Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the threat posed by our nation's rising national debt. Tuesday’s hearing was the first in a series of hearings the committee has planned to focus attention on the harmful impact the debt has on economic growth, jobs, national security, and the federal government’s ability to fund discretionary spending and entitlement programs. "Recently, I saw in the newspaper a headline that read, ‘Debts, deficits - once a focus – fade from agenda.’ Shame on us if w... Read More »