[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 6, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1348-S1350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

ECONOMIC GROWTH, REGULATORY RELIEF, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT--MOTION 
                         TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume legislative session and consideration of the motion to proceed 
to S. 2155.
  The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, sometimes--not always--but sometimes 
Congress operates under the principle that anything worth doing is 
worth overdoing, and that, to some extent, is what happened with Dodd-
Frank.
  It has been almost 8 years since Dodd-Frank took effect, and in that 
time, well over 1,700 community banks have consolidated, merged, or 
shut their doors forever. We are going backward. That is an average of 
one every 3 days.
  I was reading this morning that in the last 3 years, only 13 new 
banks have been formed in America. That is not 13 per year, that is 13 
total. Before Dodd-Frank, we averaged about 100 a year. Across America, 
banks of all sizes have closed more than 10,000 branches. Acknowledging 
the damage Dodd-Frank has wrought for our local economies is long 
overdue, and it is high time we did something about it.
  In my State of Louisiana, out-of-control compliance costs have led to 
banks boarding up their windows. That means, at this point in time, in 
at least 15 communities in my State, folks do not have access to a bank 
or to a credit union. For Louisianians living in these banking deserts, 
getting a check or a savings account may be little more than a 
pipedream.
  I am not suggesting to you that everything in Dodd-Frank was 
misguided. I think we had a handful of institutions that precipitated, 
in part, the meltdown in 2008, and Dodd-Frank regulates those 
institutions, but not every financial institution, particularly a 
community bank and a small credit union, should be lumped in with the 
larger financial institutions.
  To return to my point, even the ordinary act of cashing a paycheck--
something that goes sight unseen for most Americans--is next to 
impossible without paying high fees at the convenience store, a pawn 
shop, or a payday lender. Because of the shrinkage in the banking 
community in Louisiana, every day, ordinary Louisianians are being told 
to participate in the economy, manage their finances, save for their 
kids' future, and plan for their retirements when, thanks to Dodd-Frank 
and its overregulation of medium-sized and community banks and credit 
unions, too many Louisianians don't even have a bank branch in their 
community.
  I think it is time to swing the pendulum back toward simple, sensible 
regulations. We have legislation that will be on the floor this week in 
the Senate that will do that. It is called the Economic Growth, 
Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. I call it the Dodd-
Frank fix bill or the Dodd-Frank reform bill. It doesn't destroy Dodd-
Frank. It doesn't eliminate it entirely. It just brings some common 
sense to the legislation. I think it is a vital step in the right 
direction. Dodd-Frank, to some extent, particularly for medium-sized 
and smaller financial institutions, was like using a sledgehammer to 
kill a gnat. All our reform bill does is suggest that we ought to try 
using a flyswatter instead of a sledgehammer.
  The changes made in our bill will not mean the banks that are given 
relief will go unregulated--far from it. They will still be heavily 
regulated. They just will not be overly regulated as a result of the 
Dodd-Frank bill.
  Everybody in America knows that community banks and credit unions, 
which I refer to as relationship bankers, played no role--none, zero, 
zilch--in the 2008 financial crisis. When former Chair of the Federal 
Reserve Yellen testified during her term in office before the Banking 
Committee, I asked her point-blank: Chairwoman Yellen, what did the 
community banks

[[Page S1349]]

do wrong to contribute to the economic meltdown in 2008, and she 
responded: Nothing.
  The businesses of these small institutions revolve around lending. I 
am talking about community banks and credit unions. They lend to farms, 
mom-and-pop businesses, and homeowners. They are not hedge fund 
managers. They are not playing the margins. Yet the small banks are the 
ones that are suffocating under the weight of Dodd-Frank's 20,000 pages 
of regulations. Let me say that again. Dodd-Frank is about a 900-page 
bill, and it has 20,000 pages of regulations.
  Ultimately, our communities pay the price for the costs that have 
been imposed upon small- and medium-sized banks to comply with Dodd-
Frank, when these banks did nothing wrong in 2008.
  Studies show that when a bank branch shuts its doors, on average, the 
number of small business loans made in that community falls by 3 
percent, and that has certainly been the case in Louisiana. The experts 
say the neighborhoods can take more than 8 years to recover. You 
multiply that by 10,000 branches that have closed across this country, 
and the figure is breathtaking. It doesn't take an economist to see 
that the ultimate cost of Dodd-Frank on our communities in Louisiana, 
in Texas, and elsewhere has been job losses and economic decline.
  Fortunately, I think we can start to see a light at the end of the 
tunnel--at least if our Dodd-Frank reform bill passes. Dodd-Frank, as 
you know, said that all banks are created with equal risks and should 
be subject to the same regulations. From the largest bank to the 
smallest bank, they all create equal risk for the American financial 
system, and they should be subject to the same regulations. Whoever 
came up with that rule must have parachuted in from another planet.
  I am cosponsoring the Dodd-Frank reform bill because I believe an 
international bank--and I think common sense tells us this--with $50 
billion in assets poses a different risk to our economy than a 
community bank in Bossier City with 30 employees. The Dodd-Frank reform 
bill acknowledges that banks come in all different shapes and sizes and 
purposes, and it treats them accordingly.
  We have had 8 years under Dodd-Frank to see what this level of 
government regulation means for our economy, and it is time to find 
some balance. Dodd-Frank's purpose was to prevent another financial 
crisis. Yet, in practice, banks across this country are now able to 
offer fewer products, fewer services, and fewer loans at much, much 
higher prices as a result of overregulation by Dodd-Frank. If we want 
to get our economy back on track for working and middle-class 
Americans, it has to stop.
  I have been working closely with my colleague Senator Schatz on a 
bipartisan amendment to our Dodd-Frank reform legislation to protect 
consumers. Americans shouldn't have to spend months fighting to correct 
inaccurate information on their credit report when they didn't consent 
to have it collected in the first place. They shouldn't be penalized 
because a credit reporting agency, such as Equifax, can't keep their 
data safe.
  Our proposal would require that the Big Three credit reporting 
agencies work together to create an online portal that gives consumers 
access to their credit reports and their credit scores. This website 
would allow folks to see what information has been collected about 
them, see who has viewed their credit report and why, and opt out of 
having their information packaged and sold to third parties. It would 
make it simple for people to dispute inaccuracies on their credit 
reports. In short, it would give consumers control over their financial 
information once again.
  I respectfully urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this 
necessary amendment.
  To conclude, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer 
Protection Act--the Dodd-Frank reform bill that I have been talking 
about--will help promote stability in our financial markets. It will 
protect American consumers, and it will give breathing room to some of 
our smaller banks and to our credit unions. It will ensure that 
consumers and small businesses continue to have access to mortgage 
credit and to capital. I respectfully submit that it will help ensure 
that our relationship bankers--95 percent of the bankers in America, 
the ones on whose back this country was built--can afford to keep their 
doors open and continue lending to the middle-class drivers of our 
economy.
  Thank you.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
7 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Tax Reform

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the steady stream of good news for American 
workers continues. Just take a look at the headlines:
  ``Craft brewers putting tax savings toward expansions and new jobs.'' 
That is one headline.
  ``Grocery chain investing in employees and brand after tax reform.''
  ``Quad/Graphics to give $22 million in stock to employees.''
  ``Entergy Arkansas files plan to pass corporate tax cuts to 
customers.''
  ``Taco John's International Inc. Shares Tax Reform Benefits With 
Employees And Surrounding Communities.''
  ``Largest Health Insurer in New Jersey Says It Will Use Tax Refunds 
for Members.''
  ``Tax reform payday: Kid's clothing giant Carter's giving bonuses, 
boosting retirement funds.''
  ``Tax reform positive for farmers, ranchers.''
  ``Express scripts giving employee bonuses averaging $1,200 following 
impact from tax law.''
  ``Franklin Savings Bank to Give Employees $1,000 Bonus; Cites New Tax 
Reform.''
  ``Sprouts plans to invest tax reform savings in employee programs.''
  ``First Horizon announces minimum pay level increase.''
  ``NC Blue Cross: Tax cut will hold down rate increases, workers to 
get $1,000 bonuses.''
  ``Hormel to give employees stock shares, increase wages.''
  I could keep reading. These are all headlines--headlines from the 
past 2 weeks that have come from news organizations around the country, 
highlighting the ways in which tax reform is benefiting American 
workers.
  Businesses large and small are seeing the benefits of tax reform, and 
they are passing them on. More than 400 companies, and counting, have 
announced good news for American workers, from wage increases to 
increased retirement benefits. Utility companies in at least 39 States 
are passing tax savings on to consumers.
  CNBC reports that small business confidence has hit a record high in 
2018, driven by small business owners' optimism about the new tax law. 
In other words, tax reform is working exactly the way it was supposed 
to. It is putting more money into Americans' pockets and giving them 
access to new jobs, higher wages, and increased opportunity.
  I don't need to tell anyone that Americans had a tough time during 
the last administration or that our economy had stagnated. All you have 
to do is look at the numbers. A chief priority of the Republican 
majority of this Congress has been turning things around for American 
families, and that is why we took up tax reform.
  The Tax Code might not be the first thing people think of when they 
think of economic prosperity, but it actually plays a key role in 
determining the success of individual families and of our economy as a 
whole.
  The more money the Federal Government takes from you in taxes, the 
less money you have to save or pay bills or buy a house or repair your 
car. The more money a business has to give to the Federal Government, 
the less money it has to grow the business and invest in its workers. 
If businesses are struggling to grow and succeed, that is a big problem 
for American workers.
  In order for American workers to thrive, American businesses have to 
thrive. It is pretty hard for a small

[[Page S1350]]

business to hire a new worker or to raise wages if the owner can barely 
pay the tax bill.
  It is unlikely that an American company is going to have a lot of 
spare cash for investing in its workforce if it is struggling to 
compete with foreign companies that are paying far less in taxes. And 
it is unlikely that America's global companies are going to focus on 
reinvesting in the United States if they face a tax penalty for 
bringing foreign earnings back home.
  When it came time to draft a tax reform bill, Republicans knew that 
the bill had to do two things. First, it had to lower the tax burden on 
American families and put more money in Americans' pockets right away, 
and it had to create the kind of economy that would give American 
families access to security and prosperity for the long term.
  To achieve the first goal, we lowered tax rates across the board for 
American families. We nearly doubled the standard deduction, and we 
doubled the child tax credit.
  To meet the second goal, we lowered our Nation's massive corporate 
tax rate, which, until January 1, was the highest corporate tax rate in 
the developed world. We lowered tax rates across the board for owners 
of small and medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches. We expanded 
the ability of business owners to recover investments they make in 
their businesses, which will free up cash so that they can reinvest in 
their operations and their workers. We brought the U.S. international 
tax system into the 21st century by replacing our outdated worldwide 
system with a modernized territorial tax system so that American 
businesses are not operating at a disadvantage next to their foreign 
counterparts. It is working.
  In less than 3 months, we have seen lower tax burdens for American 
families, pay increases, bonuses, new jobs, increased investment in the 
American economy, better employee benefits, and other kinds of 
benefits, such as lower utility bills. All of that means more money in 
Americans' pockets. It means more money to put toward a child's 
education, more money to save for a house or a car, and more money to 
save for retirement.
  Tax reform is accomplishing our goal of making life better for 
American families, and the benefits have just begun.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________