Jeb Hensarling

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Again, I wish to urge adoption of the gentleman's amendment. Madam Chair, I would note that this is the last amendment that we will be debating. So, again, I want to use this opportunity to urge all of my colleagues to support the JOBS Act. We again know that jobs, economic growth, the state of our economy continue to be the most pressing issues we are facing in the Nation today. These are foremost in the minds of our constituents. I want to thank the Republican leader, the gentleman from Virginia, for his leadership in bringing this effort to the floor. I certainly want to thank the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Bachus of Alabama, and the prime author of the legislation, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Fincher), who has been very active in this debate. I also want to thank the Representatives, my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, for working with us again. It is challenging, most challenging, to find areas of consensus, and most challenging to find the ability to move bipartisan legislation. I think this is a day, a moment, that can be celebrated by all Members. It certainly doesn't do what we would totally like done on our side of the aisle, and I'm sure my friends on the other side of the aisle have the same thing to say. But it is a step in the right direction for allowing more start-ups to access equity capital to create more jobs for a Nation in desperate need of more job growth and more economic growth. Again, we know the President in his Statement of Administration Policy has indicated a desire to sign this piece of legislation, and I look forward to the President having that opportunity. I hope it is not our last opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis in this Congress and in this year. It is certainly a good start and something I believe the American people will celebrate. I want to urge adoption of the gentleman's amendment; I want to urge all of my colleagues to support the bill; and let's find ways to grow this economy and get America back to work. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa for bringing this amendment to the floor. I suspect, given that the SEC already has a fairly comprehensive Web site, they probably would have done the proper job in outreach on small business issues. But as important as the JOBS Act is, his amendment is helpful to the underlying bill. I also want to thank him for working with us to tailor his amendment to the underlying bill. Again, it is my expectation that the SEC would do this job. This will help ensure that all the benefits of this act will be known throughout the small-business community. I urge adoption of the gentleman's amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the bill.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Among other reasons I think we should oppose this amendment, number one, I'm not sure what we're going to learn in 1 year. We didn't get into this terrible environment of high unemployment overnight. Frankly, it took 3 years of the burdens that this administration has placed on small businesses. I don't know if we are going to get out of it overnight. So, number one, I don't believe that 1 year is particularly helpful. But, again, we can have a debate about the root causes. We're already going to know which companies go public. And at some point in time you have to say are the benefits to be derived from the report, from the regulation, worth the cost? I simply don't see it, Madam Chair. Again, I urge defeat of the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, this, again, the underlying piece of legislation is a piece of legislation that is designed to ensure that small businesses have an on-ramp to equity financing into the IPO market. Let's recall again, why are we seeing so few IPOs? Why are we continuing in this 8 percent-plus unemployment environment for over 3 years, the longest period of sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression? Well, I listen closely to businesspeople in the Fifth Congressional District of Texas. I listen to other job creators around America, and here's what I hear. John Mackey, cofounder and CEO of Whole Foods Market: In some cases regulations have gone too far, and it really makes it difficult for small businesses. There's too much bureaucracy and red tape. Taxes on business are very high. So we're not creating the enabling conditions that allow businesses to get started. We're trying to cut away red tape with this JOBS Act. Andrew Puzder, CEO, CKE Restaurants: Government just doesn't understand how much uncertainty it creates in the economy when it attempts to regulate what the private sector does, and it really doesn't understand what the private sector does. Bernie Marcus, cofounder, former CEO of Home Depot: Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are almost impossible to deal with. Home Depot would have never succeeded if we tried to start it today. Let me repeat that, Madam Chair. Home Depot would never have succeeded if we tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business, and I mean every day. It's become stifling. If you're a small businessman, the only way to deal with it is to work harder, put in more hours, and let people go. When you consider that something like 70 percent of the American people work for small businesses, you are talking about a big economic impact. Just three voices, Madam Chair, from America's job creators. Again, it's not a real secret why we've had a dearth of IPOs. I understand the gentlelady's amendment is to have the SEC issue a report, number one. I would also note, since these are public filings, we ourselves, as Members of Congress, will have no trouble whatsoever understanding how many companies will go public in the next year. I understand the gentlelady's argument, I respect that, but, again, it's just one more reporting burden that, frankly, is being placed on the SEC. Now, we've had a debate, and the ranking member has brought up many times he's unhappy with the level of funding that the SEC has received. In fact, I would note, however, that even the President of the United States in his budget is not trying to give the SEC what they have requested. But what the ranking member has said: Studies are not done for free by the SEC. I think we have got a further burdening of the SEC with more work. Given the current decision to restrict SEC funding, I will be much more careful about burdening them with studies which will inevitably come at the expense of more important duties. Again it's a debate. Does the SEC have the right amount of resources, too much, too many? I don't know, that's a legitimate debate. But, apparently, he thought strongly enough that we should not be burdening the SEC with further burdens at this time. For all of those reasons, I would urge that we defeat the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition.

Mr. HENSARLING. In that case, Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Fincher).

Mr. HENSARLING. I would inquire of the Chair how much time I have remaining.

Mr. HENSARLING. I guess the threshold question I have to ask is: How does this amendment help jump-start business start-ups? What this amendment does is require one more disclosure report. Much of this, frankly, I do not believe to be germane to the underlying bill, but it is here before us. Nonetheless, it is one more regulatory burden. It is one more cost imposed upon our job creators. It is one more piece of red tape when already the Small Business Administration under the Obama administration has reported the total regulatory cost amounts to $1.75 trillion annually, which is enough money for businesses to provide 35 million private sector jobs with an average salary of $50,000. The same report from the Obama administration's Small Business Administration has reported that 64 percent of all new jobs in the past 15 years have come from small business. Yet these small businesses face an annual regulatory cost of $10,585 per employee. So, again, I begin to wonder. I know every single report, every single study, every single regulation has, perhaps, some beneficial purpose, but the cumulative impact of them all, Madam Chair, is hurting our businesses. According to a recent Chamber of Commerce small business survey, 78 percent of small businesses surveyed report that taxation, regulation, legislation from Washington is what is making it harder for their firms to hire more individuals. What we understand from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a division of OMB, is that during the first 3 years of the President's administration, we have seen a 95 percent increase in the average number of completed regulations deemed economically significant to our economy--almost double. The administration has currently proposed 3,118 regulations. Again, at what point do you begin to say enough is enough? I understand the purpose of the gentleman's amendment, but I think we know that we have lost far too many jobs overseas. It's not a matter of documenting the symptom; it's getting to the disease. What is the root cause? Well, we know what the root cause is. The root cause is too much red tape. It's bills like the President's health care plan, which is an anathema to small businesses across the land--2,000 pages of legislation that have promulgated even more regulations. Talk to any small business person in America, and the person will cite the President's health care program as something that is inhibiting job growth. This regulatory burden almost doubles economically significant regulations imposed. That's what's chasing jobs overseas--taxation. The President is proposing $1.9 trillion more in taxes, much of it to fall upon small businesses; and we wonder why we're losing jobs overseas? That's what needs to be documented--not the fact that it's happening, but the root causes. That would be more worthy of a study. At this point, the purpose of this bill is to help bring more companies on to this IPO on-ramp. This is at cross-purposes, and I would urge my colleagues to defeat this. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3606 and insert extraneous material thereon.

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Regrettably, the ranking member is not here because he chose to violate House rules, and his speaking privileges were denied for the rest of the day. But during our committee markup, he said: First of all, studies are not done for free by the SEC. Given the current decision to restrict SEC funding, I will be much more careful about burdening them with studies which will inevitably come at the expense of more important duties. One more reason to oppose the gentleman's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I have some good news for the gentleman from Virginia. The very issue that he cares to study has already been studied. In January of 2011, Democrat CFTC Commissioner Michael Dunn said: To date, CFTC staff has been unable to find any reliable economic analysis to support either the contention that excessive speculation is affecting the markets we regulate or that position limits will prevent excessive speculation. With such a lack of concrete economic evidence, my fear is that, at best, position limits are a cure for a disease that does not exist or at worst a placebo for one that does. A similar study has been conducted by the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Chairman, if we're going to be in the business of conducting studies, perhaps we should study why this administration has had over 3 years to study the Keystone pipeline and still refuses to allow more energy to come to America for Americans. Now, apparently, in a reversal, the President has decided that if the energy can hitchhike from Canada successfully to the Red River, the northern border of Texas, he'll allow it to get to the refineries on the gulf coast. Otherwise, no energy. Shouldn't, on the road to American energy independence, we ought to at least go through the road of North American energy independence. These are 20,000 shovel-ready jobs--and I know the administration gets confused at what is a shovel-ready job--but 20,000 shovel ready jobs, and yet it's rejected by this administration. Why? Well, because this is an administration that has essentially declared war on carbon-based industry, thus is trying to increase prices of energy for small businesses, for struggling American families, for hardworking taxpayers. Please don't take my word for it; take the word of the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu: ``Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.'' Well, again, I've got good news for the administration: they're doing a wonderful job. They have us on the road to increasing energy levels to the price of Europe, and the consequent unemployment that goes with it, and the consequence of having the fewest business start-ups in almost two complete decades. So, the matter that the gentleman cares to study has already been studied. It has already been studied. I also recall a time when these people were called investors, and we actually welcomed them into the market. I suspect that it is fear of this administration's energy policies that is causing these prices to skyrocket even further. As bad as they are today, people know they're going to be even worse. So I would urge a rejection of this amendment that takes this bill in the complete opposite direction that it needs to be going. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. HENSARLING. I yield myself the balance of the time. I would just say to my friend, the gentlelady from Texas will have to settle for batting .500, as I supported her earlier amendment, but I have to rise in opposition to this one. The very purpose of an accredited investor is to identify the class of individuals who have greater capacity to handle risk, do not require the enhanced protections. Her amendment would unnecessarily restrict capital formation and consequently job growth. I urge its rejection, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. At this time, I will yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert).

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. HENSARLING. I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. HENSARLING. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Fincher).

Mr. HENSARLING. I rise to claim time in opposition.

Mr. HENSARLING. I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), the chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee.

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.