[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3246-3247]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             DODD-FRANK AND OTHER FINANCIAL SERVICES BILLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Barr) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to discuss the negative 
consequences of the Dodd-Frank law, as well as reforms to the law that 
would represent much-needed solutions for middle class families in 
Kentucky and across the country.
  When this act was signed into law nearly 5 years ago, its supporters 
made many promises. President Obama claimed it would ``lift the 
economy'' and that it would help protect Main Street, not Wall Street. 
In both of these instances, the opposite has proven true.
  While the President is claiming victory on the economy, many Kentucky 
families and families across America are still hurting. Last year, the 
U.S. economy grew at an anemic 2.4 percent, the ninth year in a row of 
growth below the postwar average of about 3 percent.
  President Reagan also inherited a very difficult economic situation; 
however, if this recovery had progressed at the same rate as the Reagan 
recovery of the 1980s, the economy would be about $2 trillion larger, 
which works out to be about $1,500 more per family per year.
  This is hardly the boom that the President talks about. Growth this 
low for this long is simply not fast enough to lift incomes for most 
Americans.
  A primary cause of the weakness of this recovery is the avalanche of 
red tape coming out of the Obama administration, including the nearly 
400 new rules and regulations arising from Dodd-Frank that are crushing 
small communities around the country.
  Dodd-Frank imposes costly and burdensome restrictions on community 
banks and credit unions that limit their ability to loan money to their 
customers, which is hindering economic growth and hurting low- and 
middle-income Americans the hardest.
  A community banker in my district told me that before Dodd-Frank, 
lending decisions were often made based on a business judgment about 
the character and the creditworthiness of their customers.
  People in small towns across America, they know each other, and local 
banks and credit unions are in the business of helping their neighbors. 
These institutions assume the consequences of their decisions at no 
risk to the financial system or to taxpayers who have been on the hook 
for bailouts.

                              {time}  1015

  So they are willing to take a risk, both in terms of how to best help 
their customers achieve his or her dreams and how to provide a 
reasonable return for the shareholders of the bank or members of the 
credit union.
  But that same banker told me that, after Dodd-Frank, the government 
is making the decisions instead of the shareholders or the bank board, 
imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down mandate on local financial 
institutions.

[[Page 3247]]

  Rather than working with people, this community banker now deals with 
mountains of paperwork and Federal regulators. The result has been a 
disaster.
  The number of community banks has declined by 9.5 percent. There have 
been far fewer new community bank charters, and less services and 
products are now offered to customers and consumers.
  The law created new, unaccountable bureaucracies on top of an overly 
complex financial regulatory system. New, unaccountable bureaucracies 
like the well-sounding but mislabeled Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau and the Financial Stability Oversight Council operate largely 
out of public view and are subject to almost none of the checks and 
balances imposed on other government agencies.
  For example, the Bureau deemed Bath County, Kentucky, with a 
population of about 10,000 people, as nonrural, making it even more 
difficult for its people to secure loans from community banks and 
credit unions.
  Think about this: the ridiculous scenario of Washington, D.C., 
bureaucrats labeling one of the most rural parts of America as nonrural 
and hurting the people as a result.
  Shockingly, this unaccountable agency provided no valid justification 
for how they came to this conclusion, nor any means to challenge this 
arbitrary determination.
  After I introduced legislation, along with members of both parties, 
to address this issue, the agency, after more than a year of delay, 
finally relented and expanded its definition of rural to include Bath 
County.
  While this is a positive development for this Kentucky county, the 
process remains opaque, arbitrary, and not subject to appeal, and our 
rural communities continue to struggle with one-size-fits-all 
regulatory approaches for which they lack the resources to comply.
  This week, I will reintroduce the Helping Expand Lending Practices in 
Rural Communities Act, which would give individuals an appeals process 
by which to contest this designation.
  Dodd-Frank includes several other rules which are holding our economy 
back. Thanks to the Bureau's qualified mortgage rule, it is now harder 
for creditworthy low- and moderate-income Americans to buy a home.
  The Volcker rule has made U.S. capital markets less competitive 
internationally, creating unnecessary obstacles for U.S. companies to 
raise the funds they need to grow their businesses and create jobs.
  Despite the stated intentions of this law, community banks and credit 
unions have been left to comply with onerous new regulations intended 
to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis they did not cause.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, let's join together, cut red tape and 
unnecessary regulations that are holding our communities back. We can 
create real opportunity and encourage private sector growth by 
repealing this law and starting over.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to heed the gavel.

                          ____________________