[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13875]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CREDIT UNIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. In meeting with hundreds of constituents and dozens 
of small business this summer, one theme emerges repeatedly: The price 
that American families and small business continue to pay for the near 
collapse of our economy.
  Earlier this year, new examples emerged of manipulation that was 
harmful, and in some cases potentially illegal, by Wall Street in New 
York and Fleet Street in London. Financial interests continue their 
assault on even modest reforms in the Dodd-Frank financial legislation 
protections for consumers and for the financial system itself. Now, 
clearly, the elements are a little overly complex and not perfect, but, 
in part, that's the result of aggressive action from the industry 
itself assaulting the regulatory process.
  On the campaign trail, Governor Romney and his running mate argue for 
less protection and a return to largely self-regulation of banks that 
nearly brought the global economy to its knees.
  At the same time, the Republican Party's response to the challenges 
of the mountain of student debt is first to reduce the funding for Pell 
Grants that help make college more affordable for low-income students, 
and then they would help fewer student borrowers but help more bankers 
by giving the lending business back to the private sector--backed by a 
government guarantee, by the way. Hardly a free-market solution.
  Governor Romney famously pointed out that if this doesn't work for 
you, you can always borrow from your parents. I think most people, not 
just Republicans or Democrats, Independents, believe that's not the 
solution. It's more of the problem, even for those students who have 
parents that could finance them.
  There are things that we can do. We should, of course, fight to 
protect the reforms and the restraints on Wall Street and protect 
direct, lower-cost lending to college students, but we also might 
inject a little more competition into the financial marketplace.
  Now, for millions of Americans, a little competition to the big banks 
comes from credit unions who are more on the scale of a community bank. 
Most are small to medium-sized, very local, and nonprofit, with a 
volunteer, membership board of directors.
  That nonprofit status is important. They not only don't pay taxes; 
they're not paying dividends to stockholders or multimillion dollar 
bonuses to CEOs. They use that advantage to lower costs and improve 
service.
  Credit unions are currently prohibited from lending more than 12.25 
percent of their assets to business. Now legislation has been proposed 
to raise this lending cap to a little more than a quarter of the 
assets. That would be ideal for small business lending.
  It wasn't the credit unions on Main Street that almost brought the 
economy to its knees; it was Wall Street gamblers and, too often, 
cheaters in the financial sector. They were skirting the law and, in 
some cases, breaking it. Maybe it's time that we give small businesses 
a boost by giving commercial banks a little competition.
  I hope my colleagues will not just sponsor H.R. 1418, the Small 
Business Lending Enhancement Act of 2011, but also be an advocate. It 
will be a strong signal that we truly want competition in the financial 
arena, that actions have consequences, and small and emerging 
businesses are our priority. Let's give small business more choices for 
financing they need, and let's help credit unions get more capacity to 
meet that need.

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