Not to be missed is Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune editorial on the JOBS Act, a package of six bills from the Financial Services Committee that will promote innovation, economic growth and jobs. The JOBS Act – short for Jumpstart Our Business Startups – is a “rare example of bipartisanship” in today’s Washington, the newspaper writes, that would cut red tape for small businesses and emerging growth companies. Even though the JOBS Act passed the House of Representatives on March 8 by a vote of 390-23 and has the backing of President Obama, some Democrats in the Senate are intent on delaying action... Read More »
What happens when you don’t pay your mortgage? Apparently, nothing for a long time due, in part, to government programs and policies that can drag out the foreclosure process for years. The result is a growing backlog of foreclosures and a weak-to-nonexistent recovery in home prices. That’s what readers of the Washington Post learned over the weekend in a story about a Maryland couple who have lived in a $1.3 million dollar mansion for five years but have never once made a mortgage payment on the custom-built, 4,900 square foot, five bedroom “manse along the Potomac River” described in the sto... Read More »
An electric utility in Texas. A housing authority in Connecticut. A water treatment project on the banks of the Potomac River. What do all three have in common? They all could be harmed by the Volcker Rule. While the Volcker Rule is touted as a central part of Washington’s effort to get “tough” on Wall Street, it’s become the latest example of how the Dodd-Frank Act and its 400+ regulations have spawned a multitude of unintended consequences. What kind of unintended consequences? “State and local officials say the new regulation, known as the Volcker Rule, could make it more expensive for them... Read More »
The 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act is a disastrous piece of legislation that is burdening the economy, increasing the size and scope of the Federal bureaucracy, and making the American financial system less transparent and less functional. That is the conclusion of an in-depth article in The Economist titled “Too Big Not to Fail” that appears in the magazine’s Feb. 18 edition and is part of its cover story “Over-regulated America”. Echoing the concerns Financial Services Committee Republicans have raised since Congress hastily debated and passed Dodd-Frank in 2010, The Economist article highlights ... Read More »
By: Rep. Jeb Hensarling Politico February 12, 2012 09:11 PM EST As President Barack Obama continues his campaign for a second term, Americans must keep in mind that his major policy visions have already been legislated into reality — and reality has regrettably not lived up to his promises. One of the boldest of broken promises came when the president and the Democrats who controlled Congress then sought to “rein in Wall Street” by enacting legislation that codified too big to fail, made the financial institution bailouts permanent and ignored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing giants at... Read More »
By Rep. Lynn Westmoreland On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on H.R. 3461, a bill to improve the examination of depository institutions, and featured testimony from representatives from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve Board, and the National Credit Union Administration, as well as testimony from several bank executives. I’ve sat in many of these hearings and listened to these Washington regulators claim they are working to resolve their problems or just had them pass the ... Read More »
By Paul Sperry, for Investor’s Business Daily http://news.investors.com/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=593669 Job-killing bank regulations threaten to wipe out all the gains in private-sector employment since the recovery began, the industry warns. Washington, however, is hiring thousands more bureaucrats to enforce the rules. Signed into law last year, the Dodd-Frank Act is the biggest rewrite of financial regulations since the New Deal. It was intended to rein in Wall Street "excesses." But the banking industry says burdensome red tape is hurting economic growth and jobs in a still-sluggish labor mark... Read More »
The Committee on Financial Services held a field hearing on “Regulatory Reform: Examining How New Regulations are Impacting Financial Institutions, Small Businesses and Consumers in Illinois” earlier today. At this hearing, representatives from community financial institutions and small businesses explained how new financial regulations are affecting the ability of financial institutions to extend credit and stimulate job growth. The Committee also explored the effect of stringent federal bank examinations—examinations that some financial institutions contend may be overzealous—on economic rec... Read More »
INFLATION JOBS CPI Index Inflation Monthly -0.1 (October) Inflation Annual +3.5% (October) Unemployment Rate (monthly) 9.0% (October) Jobless Claims (monthly) 406,000 (October 29) Personal Income (monthly) 0.1% (September) Job Growth (monthly) +80,000 (October) GDP and DEBT OTHER Real GDP (updated quarterly) +2.5% (Q3 2011) Curent Dollar GDP in billions (updated quarterly) $15,198.6 billion Federal Deficit (updated monthly) 15,033.6 billion (November) Home ownership Rate (quarterly) 66.3% Q3 2011 data Interest Rate- Intended Federal Funds Rate 0.08 (November 16th) Read More »
With 14 million Americans out of work and the Obama Administration issuing regulations at a rate of one new rule every 2 hours and 20 minutes, it’s a question that must be asked. For the Obama Administration, the answer to the question is a resounding “No!” Dr. Jan Eberly, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department, writes in a blog post that the massive amounts of red tape raining down from the administration are not hurting the economy. Dr. Eberly cites a survey of economists to back up this claim. One of the biggest failures of the Obama Administration is its determi... Read More »
