Maxine Waters

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chair, the amendment would, at best, duplicate the Federal Reserve's current policy regarding the disclosure of transcripts and, at worst, falsely imply that the Federal Reserve would be prohibited from exercising its discretion in determining when to release FOMC meeting transcripts in accordance with prudent monetary policy. After all, communication in and of itself is a key monetary policy tool, and it would be unwise to tie the Fed's hands when it comes to using it. Furthermore, any failure to allow the Federal Reserve to strike the appropriate balance between transparency and the disclosure of potentially market-moving information, particularly at a time of financial stress, would have significant adverse impacts on our economy and could, in turn, have a chilling effect on monetary policy deliberations. To underscore the fact that this potentially harmful amendment is completely unnecessary, I think it is also worth pointing out that the Federal Reserve is already a leader among central banks in advanced economies when it comes to making its transcripts available to the public. While the Federal Reserve releases transcripts with a 5-year lag, other advanced economies have adopted requirements to release transcripts after much longer periods. Japan's Central Bank releases transcripts to the public after 10 years, and the European Union releases transcripts after 20 years. In addition to releasing transcripts to the public, the Federal Reserve employs a range of additional measures to enhance the public's understanding of the Federal Open Market Committee's views and expectations. For example, the Federal Reserve issues a statement following the conclusion of each of its meetings that includes the Federal Reserve's policy decisions and its rationale, includes the vote of each FOMC member, and provides a short summary of any dissenting views. The Federal Reserve also releases detailed minutes that are released on a 3-week lag following each FOMC meeting. The minutes contain a detailed discussion of the policy deliberations and the range of views that were presented and includes votes on each policy action taken by each FOMC member. Since 2011, the Chair of the Federal Reserve gives a press conference following each FOMC meeting for which a summary of economic projections is prepared, amounting to four press conferences each year. This provides the opportunity for the Chair to explain her views and respond to questions from the financial press. In January 2012, the Federal Open Market Committee also published a statement of longer-run goals and monetary policy strategy in which it outlined how it would assess its compliance with statutory mandates to promote full employment and price stability. Subsequently, in September 2014, the Federal Reserve published a statement outlining its policy, normalization principles, and plans. Finally, the Federal Reserve, as it is required by law, regularly testifies before the House and Senate on monetary policy matters on no less than two occasions a year. Chairman Yellen has made herself available to testify on regulatory matters at the request of Congress. So, all of this is to say that claims that the Federal Reserve lacks transparency or doesn't communicate its thinking to the public just don't hold up to the facts. I urge Members to oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Modification to Amendment No. 6 Offered by Mr. King of Iowa

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, despite what my colleague on the opposite side of the aisle, Mr. Huizenga, has said about our not knowing what is in the bill, we know what is in the bill, and this Congress should be frightened about what you are attempting to do with establishing this simple monetary policy rule that is unworkable. This is dangerous. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney). She is the ranking member of the subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises of the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 3189, a bill that would undermine the Federal Reserve's monetary policy independence, politicize its decisionmaking, curtail its ability to respond to a wide range of dynamic economic data, and weaken its ability to effectively carry out its regulatory responsibilities to promote the safety and soundness of our financial system. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 3189, the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act, should more appropriately be called the Eliminate the Federal Reserve's Ability to Support the American Economy and Promote Full Employment Act. While no Federal agency is perfect and should be reflectively shielded from reform, this bill does not reflect a good faith effort to strengthen the Federal Reserve or hold it accountable to its mission, to keep inflation low and stable, and to promote full employment. Rather, this bill is designed to put monetary policy on autopilot under a strict, rules-based approach subject to reviews and audits by the GAO. This approach seeks to discourage monetary policymakers from considering the wide range of ever-changing economic data that is relevant to effective decisionmaking and would discourage the Fed from engaging in the types of bold and forceful actions that have been so critical to our economy's recovery over the past 6 years. As the largest economy in the world that is increasingly interconnected to a vast and complex global economy, the notion that we should be putting blinders on our central bank strikes me as a recipe for disaster. In fact, had the Federal Reserve taken the approach called for in the underlying bill during and in response to the recent financial crisis, economic performance would have been substantially worse. As Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen put it in a letter to congressional leadership earlier this week, had the FOMC been compelled to operate under a simple policy rule for the past 6 years, the unemployment experience of that period would have been substantially more painful than it already was and inflation would have been even further below the FOMC's 2 percent objective. But the straitjacket approach to monetary policy isn't the only reason to oppose this bill. H.R. 3189 includes a host of provisions that represent the latest Republican effort to block financial regulators from fulfilling their responsibility to promote the safety and soundness of our financial system as part of the Dodd-Frank Act. In particular, this bill would impose unworkable cost-benefit analysis requirements that are designed to slow new rulemaking to a screeching halt and ensure the few that do get issued are tied up in court. The bill also requires the Federal Reserve to make public and solicit comments on its stress test scenarios, a move that, while popular with the biggest banks, would undermine the effectiveness of the test, turning this valuable regulatory tool for assessing the health of the financial system into a useless exercise. Finally, the Rules Committee print adds to the end of H.R. 3189 the text of H.R. 2912, a bill that would establish a partisan commission, with twice as many Republicans as Democrats, to review the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy and recommend changes to its mandate as well as the specific instruments and operational regime to be used in achieving it. The fact is, the Federal Reserve's current dual mandate and operational monetary policy independence have served the economy well. Such independence ensures that policy decisions are empirically driven rather than motivated by short-term political pressures while its clear objectives allow Congress to hold it accountable. Operating under the current model, the Federal Reserve played a major role in ending the panic that gripped the financial sector in 2008 and, through its sustained efforts, has supported the creation of more than 13.3 million private sector jobs and cut the unemployment rate in half since the height of the crisis, all while keeping inflation well below the target. Frankly, I think it is a terrible idea to put those who thought shutting down the government was a good idea and who thought fiscal austerity would grow the economy in a position to micromanage our monetary policy, also. Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to note that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that this bill will cost $109 million over 10 years by forcing the Federal Reserve to jump through new rulemaking and administrative hoops. To pay for this cost, the Rules Committee adopted an amendment that would raid $60 billion from the Federal Reserve's surplus account, a buffer that inspires confidence in the central bank itself. Ironically, this is the very same fund that Republicans voted to eliminate just 2 weeks ago. For all of these reasons, I would urge Members to join me in opposing this terrible legislation that would do enormous damage to our economy and the American people. I can't believe this bill is before us. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), the vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker and Members, I just heard that these bankers have the ability to understand and know whether or not the consumers have the ability to repay. That is what they told us before 2008. Unfortunately, they are the same ones now that are telling us that they can determine ability to repay. They didn't do it then, and they won't do it in the future. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1210. Today we are again wasting time on the floor discussing a bill that President Obama has already pledged to veto because it would undermine important financial reforms and put consumers and the economy at risk. H.R. 1210 would allow lenders to deal in the same kind of risky loans that sank Washington Mutual, Wachovia, Countrywide, and eventually the entire economy in 2008. The bill undermines the antipredatory lending provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act and virtually eliminates one of the most significant consumer protection rules implemented by the CFPB. The bill also revives an industry practice under which mortgage brokers can earn hefty bonuses by steering borrowers into riskier, more expensive loans regardless of whether they qualify for better rates. My colleagues seem to forget that we went through a terrible financial crisis. While we did spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue the banking system, millions of victims of predatory lending were left to fend for themselves as they were displaced from their homes and saw their life savings disappear. Many reforms in the Dodd-Frank Act ensure that the financial industry will never again be allowed to take the kinds of risks that drove us to national crisis, but the mortgage lending rules are designed specifically to protect families from financial crisis. The fact is that many banks, whether they held loans on their books or sold them off to investors, were able to profit from loans they knew borrowers could not repay. Rather than perform careful underwriting, many banks demanded high upfront fees and relied on rising home prices and private mortgage insurance to protect them from losses when borrowers inevitably defaulted. Banks also targeted families in financial trouble that owned their homes free and clear, offering them cash-outs, refinancing with high origination fees and unaffordable terms. Refinances accounted for 70 percent of subprime lending in the 3 years before the crisis and ended up sapping the life savings from many families who relied on these products to pay for unexpected medical bills or financial hardships. Department of Justice investigations found that lenders specifically targeted, again, minorities with predatory loans, destroying a generation's worth of wealth in many communities of color. Under the new mortgage rules, it is illegal to pay bonuses to brokers for steering borrowers into loans with bad terms. CFPB rules establish sensible underwriting standards so lenders are incentivized to design products that perform over the long run and make sense for consumers. In cases where banks want to make riskier loans with higher fees, they are allowed to do so, but the consumer will have extra protections if the loan goes bad. These include the right to sue for financial harm and a defense against foreclosure. The mortgage rules make good sense by protecting consumers while still allowing them access to credit and ensuring the economy can grow. These are exactly the types of regulations we should want from our regulators, and the CFPB should be commended for its success. Republicans continue to declare that the Dodd-Frank Act and the CFPB have been bad for the economy. During the last Republican Presidential debate, a rightwing group aired a commercial painting the CFPB as a communist bureaucracy and claiming the CFPB staff were responsible for denying loans to consumers. The facts show a much different picture. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal recently reported that industry analysts and experts agree that compliance costs aren't the greatest challenge facing community banks. The same article notes that loan balances at community banks grew twice as fast as their large counterparts over the last year and that their profitability is much closer to larger banks than it was prior to the passage of the Dodd- Frank Act. The Mortgage Bankers Association recently revised their expectations for 2016 and 2017 to expect even more growth in housing credits. And this week, at the National Association of Realtors' annual conference, industry economists pointed to a strong housing market, with high prospects for continued growth. It is time for Republicans to realize that Dodd-Frank and the CFPB are not the problem. They are the solution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time. As Mr. Hensarling said, it may be redundant, but that is okay. It reinforces basically what we have been talking about in relationship to 1737. I will just take a moment to say how proud I am of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, how proud I am of Mr. Cordray, how pleased I am that this is the centerpiece of the Dodd-Frank reform, how pleased I am that we now have an agency that is looking out for consumers. Prior to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, our regulatory agency said their job was for safety and soundness. They forgot about the consumers; they were dropped off the agenda. Now we have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is challenging the practices of many who claim they are in legitimate businesses. They are challenging them. They are saying to them: No longer can you rip off our consumers. No longer can you target minorities. No longer can you have discriminatory practices. Thank God for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman and Members, I am in opposition to this bill because it is simply another study, another cost to government, another unnecessary cost. While my friends on the opposite side of the aisle always claim that they are reducing the cost of government, these studies do very little. As a matter of fact, instead of a study, some of these Members who represent rural areas ought to become real advocates for their constituencies. They charge many of us as being advocates for health care, education, housing, and transportation, all of which they lack in their communities, but you never see them fighting for it. If it were not for some of us who are out there demanding better health care, better transportation systems, better education, and fighting for those who get ripped off by these fraudulent businesses every day, they wouldn't have any protection because they send too many Members to Congress who mislead them on other kinds of issues, but when it comes to their economics, you cannot find them anywhere. So, instead of a study, another study, another cost to government, why don't they become real advocates for their constituency? Why is it that we don't have transportation systems in rural communities? Why is it they have to travel miles for health care? It is because they have Representatives whom they send to Congress who are really not representing their real interests. They may get their colleagues to vote for yet another study because they don't do anything that is real and substantive for their communities. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman and Members, this discussion today has been about discrimination. This discussion today is about the very powerful automobile dealers who come to the Congress of the United States and use their considerable influence to get the Members of Congress to get rid of a guidance that was put together by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They don't want the guidance because they don't want to be guided in how not to discriminate. They have gotten away for years with markups, and they have gotten away for years with targeting certain communities. For those who say that this has not happened, you are absolutely wrong. Minority communities, poor communities are targeted by every scheme and every fraudulent operation that you can think of. Whether we are talking about this markup that causes minorities to pay more for automobiles or payday loans or whether we are talking about these private, postsecondary rip-off schools, communities of color are not only targeted in these ways, but we discovered in the 2008 subprime meltdown that communities have been targeted and that minorities who have the same credit ratings as others who are given loans--minorities who pay their bills--were charged more in interest rates for their mortgages than others. This is not something that we are making up. The people on the opposite side of the aisle will have you believe they are working in the best interest of these minorities who continue to be ripped off. I don't have to say much, if anything, to prove that that is not true. Just take a look at who is supporting them. We are supported by the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the National Association of Minority Auto Dealers, the Center for Responsible Lending, the National Consumer Law Center, the Center for Working Families, the Consumers Union. There are 67 consumer organizations who are sick and tired of seeing minorities being ripped off. We are often counseled by those who say we are not pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, that we are not doing enough. Why do you think a wealth gap exists? It exists because these fraudulent schemes are supported by people like those on the other side of the aisle. I urge everyone in Congress to vote ``no'' on this discriminatory legislation. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman and Members, no one on this side of the aisle mentioned the word ``racist.'' It is only coming out of the mouths of the people on the opposite side of the aisle. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes), a true champion for consumers.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment compounds one of the underlying problems that I have expressed in my opposition to H.R. 1737. While I have been and continue to be one of Congress' most vocal supporters of minority-owned businesses, further expanding an already unnecessary cost-benefit study concerning the impacts of nonbinding policy guidance is unproductive and only increases the likelihood that future guidance designed to actually help lenders comply with the law is further delayed or never issued. Mr. Chairman and Members, I want you to understand what is being said by the opposite side of the aisle. They basically are saying: Help me to look out for our veterans and make sure that they don't have any guidance that would impede their ability to do business. Well, I mean, that is kind of a made-up problem. This is not a problem. Simply, what is happening by the attempt to throw veterans into this is to get Members thinking ``perhaps I want to support this amendment because I don't want to be thought of as not supporting veterans.'' When you talk about cost-benefit analysis and studies, what you are talking about is: How do I tie up the agency? How do I create impediments to the agency being able to do its job. This Congress supports veterans in so many ways. We support them in their quest to do business, and we have laws on the books that will help them to successfully get into business. We support them in housing. We support them with better health care. I don't want any Members of Congress to think somehow this kind of made-up amendment is something that really they should be supporting if they want to help veterans. This is simply a way by which to get you to do something, making you think you are supporting veterans and thinking you cannot oppose it. This is an unnecessary amendment, and it gets in the way of good guidance coming out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so I would ask you to vote ``no'' on this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I was necessarily absent from the House on February 26, 2015. Had I been present, I would have voted NO on H. Res. 125, the rule for H.R. 5, Roll Call 93.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chair, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).