Fifth Anniversary of Dodd-Frank Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your leadership on this and so many other issues. I am going to have a couple of questions for you in a minute because I, like my colleague and friend from Arizona, wasn't here when Dodd-Frank was created. I like to say I wasn't here for the creation; I just have to live with the echo effects of it. I have to figure out what it means in this post Dodd-Frank world.

By the way, it has been mentioned tonight it was 2,300 pages. It sounds a little reminiscent to another bill that maybe they had to pass to find out what was in it. I think if it wasn't for ObamaCare--the Affordable Care Act--and that famous statement that was uttered about having to pass it to find out what is in it, this would be the poster child for that.

This would be the poster child for Federal Government overreach. It was an agenda waiting for a crisis to come along.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I have to disagree a little bit with you. We know that there is a tremendous amount of Dodd-Frank that we have seen play out, but this is something I am not sure everybody understands. They are still writing the rules; 5 years into it, we are still writing the rules. I don't think that was your intent at the time this was passed.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. I want to relay a little experience I had just today. I was speaking in front of a group of European Parliament members, a few European business folks; and this question was brought up about trying to harmonize our financial services laws and trying to make sure that we are all kind of on the same page.

One of the members from a very liberal leftwing party was asking about Dodd-Frank and whether that is a path that they should pursue, and even she was dubious about that. Certainly, some of the other members from the European Parliament were seeing that this is a cautionary tale.

They know that they have been down a tough spot in Europe because they have seen such a lack of growth and innovation, and they are seeing that same thing happen here in the United States.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. It seems to me that part of our problem here is not intentions, but it is ability to execute. What we have done is we have replaced the private sector. We have replaced the innovators, the people that are getting stuff done in our economy.

We have replaced them with unelected bureaucrats who don't often know what the real world is like and how it operates. I think that has caused so many problems.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. If the chairman will yield, I have got a question for you--because I have had an experience in my time. This is my third term here in Congress, and I have had a little bit of an experience that was bothersome to me. I want to know if this matches your expectations as well.

You talked about this qualified mortgage. I have a piece of legislation called the Mortgage Choice Act, where rules that were written under the Dodd-Frank Act in an attempt to protect people from being gouged, I believe is actually doing the opposite.

In fact, it is not just me. It was a bipartisan group that got together and put this piece of legislation together that last Congress passed this House in this Chamber unanimously.

For the American people watching out there, yes, things actually pass unanimously here. You are not going to hear about that in the news a whole lot, but we actually can work together.

Now, there is one disturbing thing, though. It passed the House unanimously, went over to the Senate, and there was one particular Senator who put the brakes on it. Not to name any names, but she didn't want any changes to her baby, the Dodd-Frank Act.

We had to reintroduce the bill. As the chairman wells knows, we got it into committee again. Suddenly, it went from being unanimous to being a divisive issue. That was certainly not anything on our part because it was the exact same language, but people who had decided a year ago this was the exact way to go have decided, for political purposes, that it is now something that can't be touched, can't be altered, can't even be addressed, and I am sure the chairman has some thoughts as to whether that is working.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, you just hit on the word ``compromise.'' I think there are many of us that are looking to compromise.

I was disturbed--and I am curious to hear the thoughts of my colleague from Arizona as well about this--when we were sitting in committee and had a witness in front of us who characterized the Dodd-Frank Act as a compromise bill, it struck me that I guess maybe he is right. It was a compromise between Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank at the time, both Democrats, who didn't bother to get any input from the Republicans.

As you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, you actually had a bill. A compromise would have been to take parts of your bill and parts of their bills and marry them together. This isn't what happened, though, is it?

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. I know we have probably got about 3 or 4 minutes before a quick hour has gone by here, but I go back to my intention here and the question I have got for the chairman.

Obviously, a lot of well-intentioned things. Were there some issues and problems, abuses? Absolutely. I was in the real estate industry myself, still am in construction. But the goal of having Dodd-Frank lift our economy, promote financial stability, end too big to fail, it certainly doesn't seem like that from the perspective that I am. And I think all the evidence is overwhelmingly that the answer is a resounding ``no'' on all counts.

I would love to hear the chairman's thoughts on that evidence.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. I used to be a licensed Realtor, and I will never forget that time in the late nineties when I went to my first closing, where they slid a check, the closing agent slid a check across to the seller, as is expected. They are selling their home. Then they slid a check across to the buyer, and there was kind of a nervous laugh and a joke. ``Well, we know you are probably going need to buy some furniture.'' That was the first time I personally witnessed someone borrowing more than what the house was actually worth. It is those kinds of decisions and that lack of risk, that lack of accountability, I think, that brought us to some of the areas.

I just wanted to relay that story of something that was just seared into my mind, and one I hope we never, ever repeat.

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