Jeb Hensarling

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1182) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint commemorative coins in recognition of the 100th anniversary of The American Legion, as amended.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to do something I do not often do, and that is: I have asked my leadership to put a bill on the floor that I do not support. I am talking about the bill that would provide for a non-reform reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program through the end of November. To make it very clear, Mr. Speaker, I believe this program needs to be reauthorized, and the House has done its work. The House passed a bill with reforms last November. Never underestimate the Senate's capacity to do nothing. Unfortunately, the Senate has done nothing. But this is a program, Mr. Speaker, that continues to be in dire need of reform. And now, we have reauthorized it without reforms, not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, not five times, but six times since the Financial Services Committee first reported this bill out. Enough is enough. Mr. Speaker, in America, we lost 116 lives last year to flooding, with billions and billions of dollars of property loss, and, yet, we have a program unreformed that incents people to live in harm's way. We should not be doing this, Mr. Speaker. I went and I visited with those who survived Hurricane Harvey, people that were close to your district, people whose homes had flooded three times in the last 8 years, and I heard harrowing tales of survival. And, yet, we have a program that says, you know what? We are going to help rebuild your same home in the same fashion in the same place. Hope you survive next time. That is just wrong, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, we need more mitigation money. We need better flood control projects. The House bill had more flood mitigation money than any other reform bill, but this bill before us has no reforms. Finances: This is a program that the taxpayer has subsidized so far by $40 billion. Some of the debt has been forgiven, but it runs a billion-and-a-half dollar deficit every single year, Mr. Speaker. It is unsustainable. The Congressional Budget Office says it, the GAO says it, the OMB says it. It is an unsustainable program. The finances do not work. And then last, but not least, Mr. Speaker, it is a government monopoly. It is a government monopoly when people could, through a competitive marketplace, actually get more affordable flood insurance. And that is just not a theory. That is happening as we speak. In the small little bit of the marketplace that is open to competition, people are saving hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in places like Pennsylvania, and in places like Florida. We had testimony in our committee. And so it is just rather disappointing that, again, we face the seventh time of not reforming a program that has no market competition, and that is fiscally unsustainable, and, yet, we continue to see premiums skyrocket in the government monopoly. Mr. Speaker, I do want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Blumenauer from Oregon. They tried to put together a reform package with the most minimal level of reforms, and, unfortunately, it did not appear to carry the day. I suspect we will soon cast, with an overwhelming vote, a clean reauthorization, but I don't think they are going to take it up in the Senate. Maybe I am wrong, in which case, we will have to deal with this. And I would just simply again ask, particularly for the people on my side of the aisle--I think it helps maybe once or twice a month if we ask ourselves Ronald Reagan's eternal question: ``If not us, who? If not now, when?'' Mr. Speaker, I invite somebody to answer that question for me, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I am now very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the majority whip.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), who is the chairman of our Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments Subcommittee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), who is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a very senior member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), the chairman of our Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. MacArthur), who is also the author of the legislation for the reauthorization bill before us.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from New Jersey an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), the vice chairman of the Financial Institutions Subcommittee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Abraham).

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance and the author of the real flood reform bill.

Mr. HENSARLING. I am prepared to close, Mr. Speaker. I think I have the right to close.

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

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, deja vu all over again. This House has been here many times before. In fact, we have had 41 reauthorizations of this program, 38 with no reforms. So, a vote for S. 1182 is a vote for the status quo. And what is the status quo? The status quo is people in harm's way who have homes that flood five, six, seven, and eight times, putting their lives in danger and burdening the taxpayer at the same time. A vote for S. 1182 is a vote to ensure that we continue to have more red ink as far as the eye can see. Mr. Speaker, $40 billion of taxpayer subsidies to the program already. A vote for S. 1182 is a vote to protect a government monopoly. The ranking member spoke about affordability. Well, the irony is, if we had market competition, we would have more affordable flood insurance, but we don't have market competition. When is enough enough? When do we finally act? If we can vote down this, we can vote in favor of reforms, which is what we should have done in the first place. For us to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, we all know, Mr. Speaker, is the very definition of insanity. I have no doubt this thing will be voted ``aye,'' but it shouldn't be, and it is a sad day for the House. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 488) to increase the threshold for disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to compensatory benefit plans, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, two things that are vital to the American economy: number one, 3 percent economic growth, and number two, competing with China. Three percent economic growth, Mr. Speaker, is so important because, when you look at the history of America, if you look at jobs that are created, if you look at increasing incomes, if you look at decreasing unemployment, this happens in our 3 percent-plus growth years, and that is why it is so great that America is once again seeing 3 percent-plus economic growth. But, Mr. Speaker, can we keep it? There are some alarming trends that we have to arrest, and that is that, unfortunately, entrepreneurship, that is, launching new businesses, recently hit a generational low. Companies that are going public--and 90 percent of the jobs that a company creates happen after they go public, IPOs, initial public offerings--they have been in a decline, a 20-year decline, and they have reached a new low. If we look at what China is trying to do with their 2025 program, Mr. Speaker, and dominate the world in high tech and then we turn around and we see that China has over a third of the world's IPOs, America-- our decline is now down to 11 percent--has got to change. So thus, today, we are taking up the JOBS and Investor Confidence Act, also known as the JOBS Act 3.0. What we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker, number one, we are doing it on a bipartisan basis, but we are trying to ensure that our entrepreneurs at least don't face the challenge of having the capital they need to launch their companies, because, Mr. Speaker, when we have more small businesses that are launching new enterprises and going public and staying public, these are the Amazons and the Googles and the Microsofts of the future. So, again, Members on both sides of the aisle have come together because, historically, capital formation has been a bipartisan issue here. We have come together, Democrat and Republican, to make sure that these small businesses get this start. And we try to treat the whole capital formation ecosystem, from venture capital with the HALOS Act and helping accredited investors be able to bring their capital to the table, to early growth companies and how they have to handle the very expensive 404(b) Sarbanes-Oxley provision, to the stages of companies going public, but once they go public, Mr. Speaker, the ability to stay public, and so we have a venture exchange bill to make sure that they can concentrate their liquidity in one area. So this is important. It is important to keep 3 percent economic growth. It is important that America's garages have fewer old cars, more new startups. I want to thank Members on both sides of the aisle, but I especially want to thank the ranking member, the gentlewoman from California, working so strongly and fervently and on a good, bipartisan, cooperative basis to produce the JOBS and Investor Confidence Act. Mr. Speaker, I expect that we can have a strong bipartisan vote on the floor, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), the chairman of the Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments Subcommittee, the real leader of this capital formation package on the Republican side of the aisle, and also the sponsor of two provisions of the bill: H.R. 477, the Small Business Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales, and Brokerage Simplification Act, and H.R. 6139, the Improving Investment Research for Small and Emerging Issuers Act.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), who is the chairman of the House Small Business Committee and who has sponsored a very important provision in the package, H.R. 79, the Helping Angels Lead Our Startups Act.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), the chair of our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, also the lead sponsor of an important provision in this package of bills, H.R. 5970, the Modernizing Disclosure for Investors Act.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), the chair of our Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee.