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Since 1893, Owingsville Banking Company (OBC) has served the citizens of rural Bath County Kentucky. The bank endured the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 1970s and, most recently, the Great Recession. Today, however, OBC faces a new challenge -- not the difficult market conditions of this tepid economic recovery, but an avalanche of Washington regulations. In the above video (at the 4:50 mark), fifth generation banker Thomas Richards testified that the "frightening" regulatory environment created by Dodd-Frank and enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) could wipe... Read More »

The Problem: Excessive and unnecessary regulations hurt our economy, increase costs and restrict access to private sector capital that our nation’s job creators need to grow the economy and create jobs. The Example: Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Act imposes new registration and reporting requirements on hedge funds and private equity firms. Specifically, Title IV requires investment advisers to private investment funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. As a result of Title IV’s registration requirements, advisers to private fu... Read More »

The House is in session Monday through Thursday this week and will consider one Financial Services Committee bill. Be sure to check back here on the Bottom Line Blog -- and sign up for our email updates -- for additional information throughout the week. Here's whats happening: On Wednesday at 10 a.m. the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee will hold a legislative hearing on regulatory relief bills in 2128 Rayburn. And on Wednesday afternoon, the House will consider H.R. 1105, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act. Read More »

Chairman Hensarling Op-Ed | November 27, 2013 Persistently weak job growth, higher taxes on families and record-breaking government debt are the hallmarks of the failed economic experiment known as Obamanomics. It is an experiment made up of many policies, but its core revolves around one central belief: A larger, more powerful, more intrusive government can and should fix every problem. The fact that you can no longer keep your health insurance, even if you like it, is yet more proof that government today has more control over our lives than ever. Perhaps nowhere is the presence of governmen... Read More »

Congressman Robert Pittenger (Twitter | Facebook) delivers this week's Sunday Video Message on the dangerously unaccountable Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The committee approved six bills to reform the CFPB last week. Read More »

Editorial | November 20, 2013 It has been five years since Lehman Brothers collapsed and longer since the US subprime bubble burst. Yet plans to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the government-sponsored behemoths that underwrite the US housing market – are little nearer to completion. Both Republicans and the Obama administration agree on the need to wind these entities down. Just not quite yet. Now a group of activist investors are agitating Washington to privatise their key mortgage insurance functions. Last week they raised their equity stakes in the two enterprises. Their business plan... Read More »

The House is in session Monday through Thursday this week. Be sure to check back here on the Bottom Line Blog -- and sign up for our email updates -- for committee specific information as the week progresses. Here's what's happening: On Tuesday morning at 10 a.m., the Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee undertakes a general overview of disparate impact theory. And in the afternoon, at 1:30 p.m., the Housing & Insurance Subcommittee reviews the implementation of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Act of 2012. Addressing the lack of oversight and accountability at the Consumer Financial Pro... Read More »

Congressman Marlin Stutzman (Twitter | Facebook) delivers this week's Sunday Video Message on the committee's review of the Federal Reserve's "dual mandate." Read More »

Matthew Cooper | November 7, 2013 It’s been five years since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went under during the financial crisis. Since then, the mortgage giants have been in conservatorship. Congress is still pondering what to do. Everyone’s pretty much agreed that the two should go. (For the record, neither lends money to homeowners directly; they buy mortgages and turn them into financial instruments that can be traded—thus pumping more money into the housing-finance market.) The question is, what should replace Fannie and Freddie? And it’s there that the House conservatives admired by the t... Read More »

The House is in session Tuesday through Friday this week. Be sure to check back here on the Bottom Line Blog -- and sign up for our email updates -- for committee specific information throughout the week. Here's what's happening: On Wednesday the committee will hold our two subcommittee hearings of the week. At 10 a.m. the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee discusses the future of terrorism risk insurance and at 2 p.m. the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee examines international central banking models. Both hearings are in 2128 Rayburn and will be live streamed on our website. Finally, o... Read More »