Scott Garrett

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, a number of questions come to my mind after just hearing the sponsor of the motion. They don't necessarily go in this order. One is: Why does she want to hide from the American public the actual facts of what they are doing to the American public, as far as spending the taxpayers' money? The second question that comes to mind is: Why, when the opportunity was given to the other side of the aisle to work with us, to amend the bill or change the bill on those areas that they disagree with on its merits, why did they instead come with this proposal, this motion on the floor totally extraneous to the underlying message and purpose of the bill? Mr. Speaker, many times we come to the floor and people say that the bill before us is a commonsense piece of legislation. Well, I am going to say it again because this is a commonsense piece of legislation. The underlying bill, maybe we should have had a different name to it. Maybe if we simply called the bill what it is, the ``Knowing What You Are Spending Bill,'' then the other side of the aisle would have agreed with us, wrapped their arms around the bill and us and said let's move forward, because who can disagree with actually know what you are spending? That is all this bill does. It doesn't eliminate any programs; it doesn't cut any programs; and it doesn't diminish any programs. All it does is allow Congress and the American public to understand what we are spending and what the costs are to the various programs that both sides of the aisle support. The proponent just now of the motion didn't get into the weeds at all. But let me just, for those just coming to the floor, remind them of what the major provisions of the underlying bill do. There are a number of them. I will give you three highlights. First and foremost, it brings Federal budgeting in line with what the private sector has already been doing for a long time. It requires the executive branch and Congress to use something called fair value accounting when estimating the cost of Federal credit programs. What does that mean? Again, it just means that, when we spend American taxpayers' dollars, we have to let the taxpayers know how much it is actually costing. This is not just my idea. This is what the private sector has been doing. This is even what the nonpartisan CBO, Congressional Budget Office, says we should be doing as well. The second point is it brings Fannie and Freddie on budget. Why do we do that? To recognize the enormous and potential budgetary impact that these housing-related enterprises can and have had on our government. I don't think I have to remind either side of the aisle that they have cost upwards to $187 billion in taxpayer dollars to get it done, and we want to make sure it is on the budget so we can see it clearly. Thirdly and lastly, this bill would require agencies to make public the budgetary justification for the materials prepared in support of their programs. What is that saying? It just means that, if you have an agency out there that wants to spend your tax dollars, they have to have the justification for it. I think those are three honest and fair proposals that the American public has a right to know. We can continue to help the poor; we can continue to have ag programs; we can continue to have energy programs; and we can continue to have programs that facilitate housing in this country. But as we do on those programs that we both agree on, let's make sure that we are being honest with the American public and telling them and knowing what it actually costs. For that reason, I recommend a ``no'' on this motion to recommit that would eliminate that possibility for transparency, accountability, and openness, and a ``yes'' on the final passage of the legislation. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chairman, the Bureau of Financial Protection claims unlimited power to define and regulate every conceivable financial transaction in the country, and yet it claims to be unaccountable to no one. So I find it disturbing that the Bureau collects private credit card data on Americans and does so without the knowledge of those Americans. Its effort is so vast that the Bureau collects information on over 990 million credit card accounts. According to Dr. Thomas Stratmann, Professor of Economics and Law at George Mason University: There are costs and potential harms to collecting and maintaining massive databases of personal financial information; including the potential for abuse, or violation of consumer privacy, and security concerns in the event of a data breach. Mr. Chairman, the Bureau believes that actions must go unquestioned, and now it wants your credit card information, too. This legislation before us protects citizens by protecting and prohibiting the Bureau from collecting Americans' nonpublic personal financial information without first receiving the express permission of the consumer. I urge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to respect the financial privacy of all Americans and support this legislation.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3448) to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to provide for an optional pilot program allowing certain emerging growth companies to increase the tick sizes of their stocks, as amended.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 3448, as amended, currently under consideration.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 3448, the Small Cap Liquidity Reform Act of 2013. This bill, approved by a vote of 57-0 in the Financial Services Committee last year, represents yet again another bipartisan and commonsense effort by the House to promote small business capital formation. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) for all of his hard work and leadership in bringing this very important piece of legislation to the floor. I also would like to thank Mr. Carney from Delaware for all of his hard work and support for this legislation as well. What are we talking about here? Today, many small, publicly traded companies are finding it more and more difficult to attract investor demand and trading liquidity for their stocks. As a result, these companies may have trouble obtaining the investor capital they need for their companies to grow and create jobs. H.R. 3448 would begin to address this liquidity crunch by testing, through a pilot program, whether increasing the minimum trading increment, also called the ``tick'' size, for certain emerging growth company stocks, or EGCs, from a penny to 5 cents or 10 cents would promote liquidity by incentivizing market makers and others investors to trade these stocks, and by concentrating this trading interest around fewer price points. All of this may sound like a lot of Wall Street and stock market jargon, but at its core this bill is a simple bill aimed at helping small American companies obtain the capital that they need from investors so that they can grow their businesses. What the bill does is leave most of the details of designing and administering the tick size pilot program to the experts at the SEC. As a result, the SEC should have the discretion it needs to devise a pilot program that reflects the views of all market participants and interested parties, and that generates the maximum amount of deep and useful data on how different tick sizes impact trading liquidity in small-cap stocks. By first establishing a temporary pilot program, this bill will ensure that any potential and permanent changes to tick sizes that may be done sometime in the future will be done only in a thoughtful, incremental, and data-driven manner. The data generated from this pilot program may also be useful into how other aspects of the stock market work, but on this point, let me be clear. This bill is focused on improving small business capital formation. This is not a bill to reform the fundamental structure of U.S. equity markets, nor is it intended to be a substitute for a more detailed, holistic review by the SEC of how these markets work. Ultimately, there are no guarantees that a tick size pilot program will achieve the desired results and that the benefits of any future action on tick sizes will outweigh the cost, but we should all be agreed that this commonsense approach will help small businesses grow. It is worth trying, and we need many more like it. Again, I will conclude by saying that this bill was approved by the Financial Services Committee 57-0. In addition, many market participants, as well as SEC Chair White; at least two of her colleagues, Commissioners Gallagher and Piwowar; and the SEC's Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies, have all vocally supported the concept of a tick size pilot program. So I hope that this legislation will serve as a final push forward getting this tick size program forward and moving off the ground. I urge my colleagues to, again, promote small business capital formation by passing H.R. 3448, and I urge my friends over in the Senate to take up this bill immediately as well. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), the prime sponsor of this legislation and the gentleman who has been the driving force behind this idea.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I believe the gentleman from Delaware has already yielded back. So, at this point, I would just like to again thank the gentleman from Delaware for his work, the gentleman from Wisconsin for his leadership on this issue. And, also on his page, I saw written in a large number was the magic number 57-0. I hope that does send a resounding message over to the other body, to the Senate, to do as they have not been doing for the last 14 months, which is to take up some of these good job-creation bills, a bill that helps promote jobs and small businesses in this country. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and for leading this Special Order this evening in recognition of what week we are in, Celebrating Marriage Week, and recognizing the very importance that marriage has to our society. Our society it can be said is built on four pillars: marriage, family, church, and the government, and today, we are faced with the reality that one of these pillars is crowding out and attempting to change the makeup of the other three. We have seen that some of our government's policies have discouraged traditional family marriage and traditional family structure as well, but I believe our government has an obligation to support policies that support marriage and support the American dream. One of the most positive influences on a society is a strong family structure. Marriage itself is essential. It is essential to society, and it is essential to our American country and the American Dream. What I say is not ideology; what I say is data-driven. It is verified by the facts that marriage alone stands as a strong social fabric, a stronger economy, and a better future for our children. See, individuals who are part of a marriage household, a married household, are more likely to overcome disadvantaged backgrounds. They are less likely to live in poverty. Married individuals are more likely to earn more money, to save more money, and are less likely to be in debt. See, marriage is not only important for the economic health of our Nation, but it is also important for future generations as well. Children are more likely to succeed not only if they come from a married household, but the chances of prosperity, and this is interesting, are greater even further if they are raised in a community, a neighborhood, if you will, that shares the value of marriage. Children who come from a married household, to give one statistic, are 82 percent less likely to live in poverty and are more likely to gain a college education and succeed in society. What is most essential to note is it is not only imperative for a child to be raised in a two-parent household, but it is also important for children to be raised, as I said a moment ago, in a community that values marriage and values family. Children who are raised in that sort of community will have higher rates of upward social mobility. I would note, to truly address some of the issues that Congress here tries to address, such as child poverty, we must address the root causes of those problems, and we must then acknowledge a solution to those problems as well. So if you want to encourage economic growth, reduce poverty and ensure a prosperous Nation for future children, our government must encourage a strong family structure. I said once before that this is not ideology-driven, this is data- driven. Why do I say that? Well, if you want to try to answer the question of what are the factors that are preventing, for example, poor children from getting ahead, for mobility, we have data to support it. There is an important new Harvard study that looks at the best data on mobility in America that just came out recently. The name of that study is ``Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States.'' It is a long title, but basically a study that came out of Harvard by economist Raj Chetty, and some of these colleagues over in Berkeley as well. What they did was to dive down into the numbers, if you will, to see what are the characteristics most likely to predict mobility for lower- income children. This Harvard study asked which factors are the strongest predictors of upward mobility in various situations. In other words, which are the factors you can look to to see what is it that will bring children in poverty situations to a higher level. They went through all of the various factors you might imagine, but of all of the factors most predictive of economic mobility in America, one that clearly stands out above the rest is family structure, meaning what we are talking about here today, marriage. I will quote from the study, if I may: The strongest and most robust predictor is the fraction of children with single parent. In other words, the strongest indicator of where they are going to have a problem with social mobility, in other words the indicator that says what is most likely to suppress or to keep children from being able to rise up and increase their stature in the community, to be able to go to college, get a job and support themselves and be productive in society, in short, live the American Dream, is whether or not they come from single-family households or whether they come from a married situation: Children of married parents also have higher rates of upper mobility if they live in communities with fewer single parents. Why do I say that? Well, again, what this recognizes is it is not just an isolationist situation, it is not just if you alone are married; it depends on whether or not you live in a neighborhood or you live in a community where everyone else around you is married, too. If you do, then you are a fortunate child because you live in a situation where you are more likely to be able to say: My future is good; my future is one where I am going to be able to prosper. My future is one where I will probably be able to move out of my current economic situation and do better. So those two factors: it is whether you come from single parents or married parents, and also whether you live in a community where people around you are all single or people around you are all married. So I think it is interesting. It is also interesting that this study comes not from some university that you might think of as being more conservative, but coming from Berkeley and Harvard, I guess we consider the source. In closing, a lot of research, including some new research from Brookings Institution, shows what has already been shown, the first point, and that is to say if you are married, you have a better chance of rising up the economic ladder. This study now adds the additional feature of the community aspect. My third point, what we are saying here tonight, is not ideology- driven at all. What I am referring to is a data-driven decision that we can make as Members of Congress. As a recent author pointed out, we just had the President of the United States standing before us saying that we must be a data-driven Congress and a data-driven government, and I agree with him. The data is now out there. The data shows to increase opportunity in America, to increase upward mobility in America, to sustain the American Dream, people of all races and people of all income levels have a far better chance if they come from a married family and a married community as well. So to understand this and have government have an effect on civil society, we must understand these parameters, and I applaud the gentleman for bringing this very important issue to the floor tonight.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, today, as we remember a somber moment in our Nation's history, we must also remember what values our Nation was founded on and remember we must always protect those values. Our Declaration of Independence promises ``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,'' and as the chairman of the Constitution Caucus, I pledge to fight for the liberties recognized by our Founding Fathers. For 41 years, since ROE v. WADE, more than 56 million unborn children have been denied the undeniable and inalienable rights we hold so dear. Pro-abortion advocates may want Americans to believe abortion is an ordinary medical procedure, but ending a human life is never ordinary, and denying the most basic of rights--the right to life--to unborn children is not, and never will be, normal. Discrimination against a person based upon their age, their size or development should never be acceptable. I join my colleagues tonight to speak out for the value of human life because we must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. We must continue to fight to protect the most fundamental right: the right to life.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2274) to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to provide for a notice-filing registration procedure for brokers performing services in connection with the transfer of ownership of smaller privately held companies and to provide for regulation appropriate to the limited scope of the activities of such brokers, as amended.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to submit extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 2274, as amended, currently under consideration.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, at this point, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of this good piece of legislation, H.R. 2274. It is the Small Business Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales, and Brokerage Simplification Act. It is introduced by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), who will be speaking momentarily. Mr. Speaker, during the period of overly burdensome Big Government-- of ObamaCare and of Dodd-Frank and thousands and thousands more regulations costing Americans literally trillions of dollars--it is really no surprise that the economic growth and job creation in this country remain sluggish. America's small businesses are the primary engine of job creation, for they are the ones who are disproportionately affected by simply a deluge of new rules and regulations coming out of Washington daily. In fact, according to a recent survey, small businesses continue to identify government regulation and red tape as the single most important problem facing them. While our colleagues in the Senate appear unwilling these days to pass any legislation to help create jobs, well, we have H.R. 2274 in the House that we take up, and it is done in a bipartisan manner. It is a commonsense piece of legislation that will remove some of these unnecessary regulations and obstacles to small business development, growth, and job creation. What it would do is exempt brokers who perform services in connection with the transfer of ownership of small, privately held companies--that are also known as M&A brokers--from the SEC's costly one-size-fits-all registration requirements that we have right now. While terms that we sometimes hear in the press and elsewhere-- mergers, acquisitions, brokers--may give you the image of big Wall Streets and what have you, make no mistake about it, this bill is about helping Main Street. M&A brokers play a very, very important role helping small businesses and small business owners successfully navigate their way through and transfer their company, or sell their company, to new owners, new enterprises, instead of simply closing up their shop and going out of business. Yet under the current SEC one-size-fits-all registration regime, M&A brokers face a myriad of costly regulations. Unfortunately, M&A brokers have to pass these costs on to, well, other small businesses and, of course, eventually the public. It is no wonder this legislation has now received widespread and bipartisan support. In fact, this bill was unanimously approved by the committee 57-0. Let me get that straight: 57-0. I would like to thank the sponsor, Mr. Huizenga, for all his hard work on this legislation and bringing it to the floor at a time like this when America's small businesses are struggling through a mire of regulation and red tape. This type of bipartisan pro-small business, pro-jobs legislation is exactly the type of thing we need. I urge my colleagues on both sides to pass it, as we did in the committee, in a bipartisan manner. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT. I thank the gentlelady for working with us on this, as she says, sensible piece of legislation. And with that, I yield such time as the gentleman may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), the sponsor of the legislation before the House at this time.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Connecticut has the unique ability, in order to come to the floor and work in a manner where both sides said we had a bipartisan joint piece of legislation, a jobs-creating legislation, to turn this moment into a partisan attack. No, I never once said I am against a blanket condemnation of all regulations. In fact, if the gentleman from Connecticut had listened closely, he would have heard that we are, I think, in a bipartisan manner, opposed to overly excessive regulation, regulation that does not make sense, regulation that hurts jobs. I think that is what his colleague also said. She is opposed to those unnecessary regulations, and that is what this bill is about. We are in favor--I think the gentlelady and I both said this--of smart regulation. That is what this bill before us is about trying to achieve. If he wants to take a look at bad regulation, all we need to do is look at the excessive and the inappropriate regulation that we had prior to the '08 crisis, the fact that we had examiners and regulators in each and every one of the major failed institutions that led up to this crisis, and those individuals failed to do their jobs. Those individuals failed to find the problems before they came to a head. Those individuals failed to find situations even when they were told about them in such cases as Stanford or Madoff or a list of other ones I could go down here as well. We had regulators who did not perform their job. Even though they had the authority, the ability, the financing, the money and everything else necessary to do it, they turned a blind eye to it and failed to do so. This is not a time for a partisanship. This a time to commend both the sponsor of the legislation and the gentlelady who joins with me on this to say that we can get together; we can find commonality when we want to have smart legislation and smart regulation. And I think that is what we should be commending and moving forward on this legislation today. With that, I don't believe we have any other speakers; but I reserve the balance of my time to close, unless the minority have other speakers.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I begin by thanking the gentlelady for her leadership on this legislation, adopting the word I just used, which is smart regulation is smart legislation, but also the words you used as well as far as reducing barriers and streamlining, which is really what the gentleman from Michigan has accomplished in this legislation that is before us. The other takeaway I am going to take from the gentlewoman's comment as well is twofold: A, this is being done in a bipartisan manner; but B, we need to move this thing forward. By that, I mean the House of Representatives today, in a bipartisan manner, is going to be moving a good piece of job-creating legislation. The next step, we know, of course, is just across the Capitol, in the U.S. Senate. We want to make sure that this legislation, in a bipartisan manner, also moves there as well. Hopefully, we can link arms and join in getting them to move this legislation there as well. With that, I thank the gentlelady. I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga) for all of his leadership in the committee and his work on this legislation and the other legislation he is leading on as well. With that, I encourage the passage of H.R. 2274, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 801) to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to make the shareholder threshold for registration of savings and loan holding companies the same as for bank holding companies.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 801, currently under consideration.

Mr. GARRETT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today, as I did a moment ago as well, in support of this good, commonsense legislation, which is H.R. 801, the Holding Company Registration Threshold Equalization Act. I also, just like with the prior legislation, would like to commend the bipartisan nature of the legislation before us and the bipartisan nature of the sponsors of this legislation, Representatives Womack, Himes, Delaney, and Mrs. Wagner, as well, for their outstanding work on getting this important measure to the floor today. What does it do? H.R. 801 basically corrects a technical oversight from last Congress' JOBS Act, which was the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, and it does so by ensuring that savings and loans holding companies, or SLHCs, are able to take advantage of the law's provisions that modify the thresholds by which bank holding companies are forced to register or allowed to deregister with the SEC. Most savings and loan holding companies are organized very similarly to bank holding companies and are subject to similar regulatory oversight. Because this is the case, it is appropriate now for us to correct this technical oversight in the law and streamline the registration and deregistration thresholds of savings and loan and bank holding companies. I will end now where I began, and that is to thank the leadership for bringing up this very important legislation, and the sponsors as well for working in a bipartisan manner. I ask that all Members support this commonsense legislation and the Senate consider it without any delay. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT. I, too, thank the gentleman from Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), the prime sponsor of the bill.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), also a prime sponsor of the legislation before us and a leading and active member on the committee.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I was just thinking as I was sitting here. Speaker Boehner raised the question at the beginning of this administration, where are the jobs? And it is a question that I continue to get when I go home to my district, where are the jobs after all the years of this administration? And it is a question that I hear on the floor once in a while from Members who don't really follow the activity on the floor closely, where are the bills to help create jobs, as if we are not moving them. Well, today, Mr. Speaker, we have moved two more to the laundry list of other legislation out of this House to answer the question, how can we help facilitate and create more jobs for the American public? That is why I am so pleased to be here with the sponsors of this legislation in a bipartisan manner, H.R. 801, and to be able to get this through the House to answer the question, where are the jobs? Well, the House of Representatives continues in its tradition of passing legislation to answer that question, to make more jobs for the American public, to streamline the regulatory process, and to reduce the number of Americans who are no longer in the workforce whatsoever. So I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to not only pass the legislation today, but also to encourage the U.S. Senate, where some often say all good bills go to die, to pick up this legislation and pass it in a forthright manner. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair. Before I give my remarks, I just want to say in response that I believe the chairman said that he is not opposed to all regulations. I think he said he is in favor of regulation, but make sure that it is smart and appropriate regulation--at least, that is my position, as well. Understand, too, to the gentleman's point, that even when this legislation is passed, the SEC still will have significant authority, will still have its enforcement division, will still have its new asset management unit, which has recently recruited industry professionals with asset management experience to serve as specialists in this unit to do the investigations that the gentleman wants to have continue, and it will continue even after the passage of this legislation. With that said, I want to again thank the chairman. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt), and also the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes), as well, for their hard work on this very important legislation, as well as all our cosponsors on both sides of the aisle. For that reason, I am pleased to support H.R. 1105. And do make no mistake about it; this is bipartisan legislation, and it is all about helping small businesses and helping to create more jobs in this country. Today, more than 17,700 companies, backed by private equity employ over 7.5 million people. In my home State of New Jersey alone, 597 private equity-backed companies support more than 377,000 workers, while the New Jersey Division of Pensions and Benefits has invested billions on behalf of retirees and private equity firms. Hopefully, all those facts give you the facts you need to know how important it is to the creation of jobs. Yet despite their long track record supporting small business nationwide, the Dodd-Frank Act has imposed enormous and numerous burdens on private equity firms, forcing most fund advisers to spend literally millions of dollars complying with new SEC registration and reporting requirements. While these burdensome regulations no doubt crimp the flow of much- needed investment dollars to America's small businesses, there is little or no evidence that they are needed to promote the stability of our financial system or to protect investors. Unlike, say, Federal housing policy and the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, private equity did not cause the financial crisis and is not--and never has been--a source of systemic risk. As former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro admitted back in 2011: ``Private equity funds have less potential to pose systemic risk than any other type of private funds.'' Indeed, if the SEC is so concerned about the systemic risk of private equity funds, their recent examinations of private equity advisers certainly do not show it. As Chair White recently said: Neither the SEC's examinations staff nor the Division of Investment Management ``has conducted examinations of an adviser to a private fund based primarily on systemic risk concerns.'' She also said: SEC examiners ``have not to date reviewed systemic risk issues as part of their examinations of private funds.'' Thirdly: None of the advisers to private funds that withdrew their registration in 2012 ``had systemic market impact.'' And so now we must ask ourselves this question: Do we really want the SEC, already saddled with a multitude of unfinished, nongermane Dodd- Frank mandates expending valuable resources on risks that don't even exist? In addition, because only sophisticated investors may invest in these private equity funds, the need to protect investors in this case is more limited compared to other areas of the security market. While I wholeheartedly support the SEC's mission to protect investors, the agency with limited resources should be devoted, first and foremost, to protecting the less sophisticated, the retail mom-and- pop investors. They need the most protection. It was Paul Kanjorski, who was in Congress when Dodd-Frank went through. He said: I, for one, could care less about high-wealth individuals who want to contribute their money to a group of investors. If they want to take the shot of losing it, it does not really affect the rest of society. It also bears mentioning that this legislation in no way alters the many existing tools the SEC already has to prevent and punish fraud in the private equity industry for the benefit of sophisticated investors and the broader economy. I urge support of H.R. 1105 at a time when most small businesses continue to have difficulty getting credit and need to grow. Passing this bipartisan legislation, commonsense legislation, should be no a no-brainer.