: Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus announced today the Committee will convene its first hearing of the 112th Congress to explore ways to promote economic activity and foster job creation. The hearing will be held on Wednesday, January 26 at 10 am in room 2128 Rayburn.
Chairman Bachus said, “Our small businesses need certainty from Washington in order to expand and hire workers. If we are to enjoy a full economic recovery, new job creation must come from the private sector. Sustainable economic growth is our main objective, and this hearing is just the beginning of our work to ensure government is encouraging, not inhibiting, job creation and economic recovery.”
The hearing, entitled Promoting Economic Recovery and Job Creation: The Road Forward, is the first in a series of hearings to review the various roadblocks that small businesses and community banks are facing, including the “mixed messages” being sent by Federal banking regulators, the competitive disadvantages created by government policies that favor institutions deemed “too big to fail”, a general climate of regulatory uncertainty, and our unsustainable national debt.
Since January 2009, when the Administration claimed the Democrats’ stimulus package would save jobs and keep unemployment below 8 percent, 6.8 million jobs have been lost. In December 2010, the unemployment rate stood at 9.4 percent. In July 2010, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the Committee during his semi-annual monetary policy report that private job creation is insufficient to reduce the unemployment rate materially and that unemployment is likely to remain above 7 percent for the foreseeable future. During the January 26th hearing, the Committee will hear from respected economists and other private sector witnesses about ways to accelerate our recovery and remove impediments to economic growth.
The hearing will also focus on the threat to economic recovery created by unsustainable Federal debt and deficits. Record levels of government spending can lead to a reduction in private sector consumption or investment, known as the “crowding out” effect, creating an environment which discourages financial institutions from lending and small business owners from investing, expanding, and hiring new workers.
Witnesses will be announced at a later date.