Patrick McHenryChairman

Washington, January 20, 2022 -

Today marks one year of one-party rule in Washington, with Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and White House. Everywhere you look—from rising prices, to empty store shelves, to weak job creation—our economy is in shambles, thanks to Democrats’ reckless agenda. Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee have been more focused on rejecting innovation and covering up the Biden Administration’s scandals, than proposing real solutions to address the immense challenges facing our economic recovery or conducting reasonable oversight.

Our Economic Recovery is on the Rocks:

Rising Prices

• Last week, the Consumer Price Index showed inflation surging at the fastest rate in four decades—the result of trillions in unchecked partisan spending.

• The Wharton budget model estimates the average American household spent an extra $3,500 last year due to inflation. In other words, American families lost an average of two paychecks due to skyrocketing prices.

• Americans know who is to blame. Democrats’ reckless fiscal policies are directly contributing to inflation, as the left-leaning San Francisco Fed argued last year.

• Prices for everyday essentials are rising faster than wages across the country. This means millions of American workers are taking a Biden Pay Cut in real terms.

Democrats’ Broken Jobs Promises

• Month after month, Biden’s jobs reports miss expectations. In December, payrolls increased by less than half of what most economists predicted.

• The White House promised the so-called American Rescue Plan would create four million jobs. Yet, ten months after enactment, Democrats’ stimulus bill has created none of the promised jobs with real job growth in 2021 actually coming in below what CBO projected without the American Rescue Plan.

• Additionally, the Labor Force Participation Rate remains frustratingly stagnant, and our economy isn’t creating any new jobs.

• Democrats have no real plan to address these serious problems for our economy going forward. Instead, they are focused on painting the jobs situation Speaker Pelosi previously referred to as “dire,” as “unique economic strength.”

Rejecting Innovation:

• The Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats stifled financial innovation and reduced consumers’ access to credit by overturning the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s commonsense “True Lender” rule, which provided clarity to financial institutions offering innovative products to customers through partnerships with financial technology companies.

• Committee Democrats used the myths about the GameStop trading saga, which have been proven false, to justify their old, recycled policies that amount to an assault on the innovative technology everyday investors use to access our capital markets at a low cost.

• Congressional Democrats have repeatedly worked to smother the financial innovation embodied by digital assets, which promises to build a more inclusive financial system.

• Democrats’ infrastructure bill contains misguided digital asset reporting requirements that would push this technological innovation and the jobs it creates overseas.

• Gary Gensler, President Biden’s handpicked Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has engaged in an ongoing attack on the digital asset industry by regulating through enforcement, which provides neither the certainty nor the clarity this rapidly growing industry needs to continue innovating here in the U.S.

Biden Administration Scandals Continue with House Democrats Nowhere to be Found:

• Committee Democrats refused to hold the Biden Administration, including Treasury Secretary Yellen, accountable for its abject mismanagement of the Emergency Rental Assistance programs created in the 2020 omnibus spending bill and the American Rescue Plan, despite repeated demands from Republicans.

• Committee Democrats also rejected Republican attempts to force the Administration and Secretary Yellen to answer for allowing millions of dollars in funding to go to authoritarian regimes and human rights abusers through International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights.

• At the same time, Democrats and the Administration ignored ongoing scandals at the IMF, including allowing Managing Director Georgieva to continue in her role after it was reported she pressured staff to manipulate data to favor China.

• Committee Democrats declined to join Republicans’ investigation into SEC Chair Gensler’s blatant politicization of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, despite an independent report showing Chair Gensler had no grounds for such actions.

• Democrats actively cheered on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra’s unprecedented and partisan attempt to co-opt the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s board of directors, upending 77 years of precedent.

• Committee Democrats have proven to be unable or unwilling to conduct any reasonable oversight of the Biden regulators’ scandals or the many crises caused by their harmful policies.

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