Patrick McHenryChairman

Washington, May 5, 2011 -

Welcome to the The Bottom Line, a new blog about financial regulation, financial services issues and housing policy from the House Financial Services Committee.  It’s where Members of the Committee and Committee staff will help educate policy makers, market observers and constituents about the financial markets and legislative proposals before the Financial Services Committee. We hope this blog will inform its readers about the ongoing debates surrounding financial services issues. We hope this blog will make people think. And finally, we hope this blog will make people want to read it. 

After the what, the why. We believe that during this time of ongoing economic uncertainty there are questions being asked that are not being  answered.  We believe there are areas of financial services regulation and housing policy that are being overlooked which demand scrutiny.  We believe that there is a need for clear, concise appraisals of policies and ideas as opposed to “inside baseball” commentary.  We believe there are reporters, congressional staff, advocates, academics, constituents, and Members of Congress who have interest in financial issues, but don’t necessarily have the time to do the digging, and we hope this blog makes it easier.

How this will work. We will bring to your attention what we think is important and interesting. We will post what we’re reading and what we’re thinking. We will post short reaction pieces and longer thought pieces. We will blog about ideas and policies that we support and that we don't support. We will try to entertain. Most importantly, we will try to engage our readers.   

Thanks for reading.