When I talk to constituents in western Pennsylvania, I hear a common concern: some in this country are thriving and getting ahead, but many believe the American dream is moving further from their reach. Big businesses, the wealthy and well-connected are doing fine, while millions of hard-working Americans – mom-and-pop business owners and those on Main Street – face one barrier after another to their success. Today, we have a two-speed economy, but all Americans deserve a chance at success, not just those in Washington, D.C., or those at the top. A major cause of this two-speed economy is the... Read More »
Congress will soon vote on a plan to significantly overhaul the 2010 financial control law commonly known as the Dodd-Frank Act. This is great news for jobs and growth in Kentucky. In the nearly seven years since enactment of the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank law, roughly one in five Kentucky credit unions and community banks has closed its doors. Nationwide, more than 43 percent of banks under $100 million in assets have disappeared. And whereas nearly 170 new banks were chartered on average per year before the financial crisis, there have been only six new bank charters total since Dodd-Frank. This... Read More »
Legislation to end bank bailouts, toughen penalties for wrongdoing on Wall Street, promote economic growth, and provide desperately needed regulatory relief for small community banks and credit unions passed the House Financial Services Committee 34-26 today. The legislation – the Financial CHOICE Act – ends the Dodd-Frank Act’s taxpayer-funded bailouts of large financial institutions and imposes the toughest penalties in history on those who commit fraud and insider trading. The bill also demands greater accountability from Washington regulators and relieves well-capitalized banks from growth... Read More »
Under the Obama Administration we saw the rise of imperial Washington, D.C., with the crushing weight of regulations from healthcare to energy to financial services harming small businesses and families from the coasts to the heartland. I hear it from my constituents each and every time I am in the grocery store in St. Louis or at Mass on Sundays – they're hurting, and they're hurting because of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington who are dictating their financial decisions and have no connection to the lives led by everyday Americans. The Obama-era behemoth known as The Dodd–F... Read More »
The United States has a rich history of bank crises. In fact, we’re number two in the world, with 13 all-time, just behind France with 15, and just ahead of the United Kingdom, with 12. Our first major banking regulation law, the National Currency Act, was passed in 1863 as a response to a bank failure rate of fifty percent. Each successive crisis, the Panic of 1907, the Great Depression, the Savings and Loan Crisis of 1982, the Housing Bust of 2007 (to name a few) triggered a new wave of financial regulation. Dodd-Frank, passed in early 2010, is the latest of these waves. There’s a saying in... Read More »
Economists at a prominent think tank based in Washington, D.C. last week reported that a full repeal of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act would boost the economy by one percent and generate $340 billion in federal revenue over a 10 year period. Dodd-Frank, as it is called for short, was passed by the Democrat controlled Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2010. At more than 2,000 pages, the law is the most sweeping financial regulation enacted since the Great Depression era. It was sold to the American public as a Washington crackdown on greedy Wall ... Read More »
The months following the 2008 financial crisis were devastating for many Americans. Hardworking men and women lost their jobs, their savings, their pensions, and their homes. But instead of taking steps to strengthen consumer protections and bring stability to the financial system, Congress and the Obama Administration responded with the Dodd-Frank Act. This piece of legislation and its associated financial regulations made an already complex regulatory environment even more complicated, made “too big to fail” the law of the land, and ultimately created new barriers for individuals and famili... Read More »
Eight years ago, the nation experienced the worst financial crisis in 80 years, which cost millions of Americans their savings, their homes, and their jobs. The response – one that was well-intended, but overly broad -- expanded the federal government’s footprint in our lives and inadvertently left us more vulnerable to the next crisis. Since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, regulators have promulgated thousands of pages of regulations, saddling America’s banks with compliance costs that have reduced the services they can offer and increased the fees they charge. The average America... Read More »
The economic downturn in 2008 cost Michiganians their jobs, families their savings, and some even their homes. In response to this seismic event, Democrats in Congress passed and President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law. According to its supporters, Dodd-Frank was a panacea of regulatory solutions that would end “too big to fail” and prevent a future financial crisis. In reality, Dodd-Frank has made it even more difficult for struggling families across Michigan to secure a future for themselves and for their children. First, Dodd-Frank did ... Read More »
For seven years now, the Dodd-Frank Act has stifled the American Dream — for half of the country. Let me explain. After the 2008 financial crisis, the economy was in dire straits. Washington responded with the Dodd-Frank Act, a sweeping overhaul of the American financial regulatory system, implementing the strongest regulations seen since FDR's New Deal. Since 2008, some of America's large firms and large metropolitan cities have experienced positive post-recession recovery. Today's rising stock market figures indicate that our economy is prosperous and gaining strength with each day. It appea... Read More »
