Today, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) first-ever taxpayer-funded bailout — approximately $1.7 billion. Despite long-standing concerns about its solvency, the FHA has not taken the necessary steps to mitigate its losses. FHA currently has several means at its disposal to minimize losses to its insurance fund, yet the FHA has not fully utilized these tools. As a result, American taxpayers are now on the hook for a $1.7 billion bailout. In light of FHA’s fiscal mismanagement and first-ever taxpayer-funded bailout, Committee Cha... Read More »
The House is in session Monday through Wednesday this week and will consider two Financial Services bills. Additionally, the committee will hold two hearings. Be sure to check back here on the Bottom Line Blog -- and sign up for our email updates -- for more information throughout the week. Here's what's happening: On Tuesday at 10 a.m. the Full Committee will hear from Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner Carol Galante on the FHA's first-ever, $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded bailout. In the afternoon, at 3 p.m. the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee will discuss... Read More »
Chairman Hensarling appeared on Fox Business Network earlier today to discuss tomorrow's Full Committee hearing on the $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded bailout the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) received at the end of September. Hensarling on FHA's current condition: "Well as you probably know, FHA is about to receive their first bailout ever: $1.7 billion basically for a government agency that for years told us they would never need a bailout." "Regrettably, Congress has been misled for years as to the true fiscal health of the FHA. And so we're going to have the director of the FHA, Carol ... Read More »
Congresswoman Ann Wagner (Twitter | Facebook) delivers this week's Sunday Video Message on her legislation -- H.R. 2374, the Retail Investor Protection Act. H.R. 2374 will be considered on the House floor this week. Read More »
Update 11/18/13: The full committee will consider six bills to reform the CFPB on Wednesday. Next week the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee will hold a hearing to discuss legislative proposals to bring more accountability, reform and transparency to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). As Chairman Hensarling has pointed out, the CFPB is arguably the single most powerful and least accountable federal agency in American history. Established by the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB's radical design is unique among financial and consumer regulators, including those respon... Read More »
Forbes | Dodd-Frank’s Costs Will Be Paid For By Low-Income Bank Customers A whole segment of society is losing access to mainstream banking that allows them to safely save and invest for the future. They are being pushed into nontraditional financial arrangements not by choice, but because of Dodd-Frank. NRO | 10 Questions for Janet Yellen With Janet Yellen now seemingly on course to be the next Fed chairman, it’s time to find out what she thinks about some very important questions of monetary and regulatory policy. Housing Wire | Industry veteran challenges CFPB’s support of disparate impact... Read More »
Congressman Randy Hultgren (Twitter | Facebook) delivers this week's Sunday Video Message on his legislation -- H.R. 992, the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act. H.R. 992 will be considered on the House floor this week. Read More »
Mercatus | The Myth of Deregulation and the Financial Crisis Did “deregulation” cause the financial crisis? Our conclusion was that there was no measurable, net deregulation leading up to the financial crisis. Omaha World-Herald | Mortgage lending at risk if rules not delayed, banker says Without a delay of onerous Dodd-Frank mortgage regulations, some banks will stop or cut back on mortgage lending. Reuters | Fed official blasts White House handling of Bernanke succession The White House has handled the process of picking the next chair of the Federal Reserve "terribly," a top official at the... Read More »
Update: Chairman Hensarling Comments on Obama Administration’s Confirmation of $1.7 Billion Taxpayer-Funded Bailout for FHA Back in February, Chairman Hensarling cautioned that: "If the FHA were a private financial institution, likely somebody would be fired, somebody would be fined, or the institution would find itself in receivership." Instead, he added, "it is merely, and merrily, on its way to becoming the recipient of the next great taxpayer bailout." Echoing the chairman's warning, later that same month the Government Accountability Office (GAO) added FHA to its 'high risk' list of gover... Read More »
Chairman Hensarling Op-Ed | September 24, 2013 Pundits and politicians, including President Obama, used the recent anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse to once again blame a lack of government regulations for causing the financial crisis. The great tragedy of the financial crisis, however, was not that Washington regulations failed to prevent it, but instead that Washington regulations helped lead us into it. Federal policies designed to expand homeownership in an "off-budget" fashion encouraged lending to people who bought homes they could not afford to keep. Perhaps not surprisingly,... Read More »
