[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6315]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             COMMUNITY BANKS: THE HUB OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

  (Mr. ARRINGTON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, community banks are an integral part of 
Main Street America, making up over 50 percent of banks and rural 
communities like the ones I represent. They are indeed the hub of 
economic activity for west Texas. They employ nearly 20,000 folks in my 
district and provide vital services to families, small businesses, and 
ag producers.
  Why in the world do we want to hamstring them with onerous and 
unnecessary regulations that make it harder for them to serve their 
communities?
  That is exactly what I believe we have done with Dodd-Frank.
  Each day that goes by, another community bank goes out of business. 
As many of my colleagues have pointed out, Dodd-Frank didn't end too 
big to fail, but it did create too small to succeed.
  Dodd-Frank didn't protect consumers. It created new layers of 
bureaucracy, paperwork, confusion, and limited services for consumers.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time that Congress act on this opportunity to pass 
the CHOICE Act before it is too late for our community banks and for 
our rural communities to choose between relationship banking and 
transactional banking.

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