Accelerating Access to Capital Act of 2016
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. 2357, to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise Form S-3 so as to add listing and registration of a class of common equity securities on a national securities exchange as an additional basis for satisfying the requirements of General Instruction I.B.1. of such form and to remove such listing and registration as a requirement of General Instruction I.B.6. of such form.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, regrettably, we know that we continue to be mired in the slowest, weakest, and most tepid economic recovery in the history of the Republic, and our fellow citizens continue to suffer. The economy continues to not work for working people.
Now, we hear a lot of happy talk coming out of the administration, and they throw statistics at us telling us how happy we should be with this economy. But the economy is limping along at 1.5 to 2 percent of economic growth when the historic norm is 3.5 percent; and if you can't grow America's economy, you cannot grow the family economy.
So all this happy talk coming out of the administration, try to convince the 8 million Americans who don't have a job that this is a good economy. Try telling that to the 6 million Americans who want to work full time but only find part-time employment. Mr. Chairman, tell that to the 94 million Americans who are out of the workforce entirely. So many of them have just given up ever being able to find any type of gainful employment in this economy.
Again, it is falling so far short of its potential. All across America, American families are worrying: How are they going to pay the bills? How are they going to pay the mortgage? How are they going to be able to pay their skyrocketing healthcare premiums under ObamaCare?
We must--we must--get this economy moving again, but, Mr. Chairman, our great challenge is the job engine of America is broken, and the job engine is small business. One of the primary challenges for small business is they cannot access capital. Right now, bank lending to small businesses is at a 25-year low. Entrepreneurship, the launching of new business, and innovation, Mr. Chairman, is at a generational low. We have more small-business deaths than we do births in America today. This cannot be allowed to stand.
That is why, Mr. Chairman, I am so happy that today the House Financial Services Committee is putting together a package of bills that will help unleash capital for our innovators, for our entrepreneurs, and for our small businesses.
It is all part of the House Republican Better Way. We don't have to be stuck in this lackluster Obamanomics economy that is not working for working people. We can do better, and we must do better. So I am happy today that we will soon be voting on H.R. 2357, the Accelerating Access to Capital Act, sponsored by the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), who has been a real leader in access to capital.
This is a bill which simply amends a registration form with the Securities and Exchange Commission to eliminate unnecessary cost for small private companies.
This overburdensome regulation that has nothing to do with consumer protection is strangling small businesses. We need to pass this bill, again, because the cost of securities registration is falling heaviest--heaviest--on our small companies.
Another bill in this package, Mr. Chairman, is H.R. 4850, the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act sponsored by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer). This would give really small businesses and startups more flexibility to raise funds from existing relationships without having the added cost of having to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The third bill in this package is H.R. 4852, the Private Placement Improvement Act sponsored by the chairman of our Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), and it helps the bipartisan JOBS Act reach its full potential by maintaining a clear and commonsense approach to regulations for private offerings.
Again, it simply helps smaller companies raise capital. You cannot have the benefits of capitalism for American families without capital.
I commend each of my colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee for authoring these bills, for furthering these bills, and for what they will do to ensure that we can have economic growth for all, bank bailouts for none.
Now, we will soon hear from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Chairman, and if history is our guide, we will have great angst, wailing, and gnashing of teeth that somehow this is hurting consumers. Nothing--nothing--in this package does anything to detract from the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investors Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and the list goes on. Fraud is fraud. Fraud is illegal. You cannot have competitive, efficient markets with it.
But the SEC has a tri-part mission. Part of that mission is capital formation, and they have failed. They have failed. We must succeed on behalf of American families.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chair, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), the author of H.R. 2357, the Accelerating Access to Capital Act.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the Republican leader and the leader of our Innovation Initiative.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say, with regard to the gentlewoman's anecdote, if the gentleman engaged in fraud, apparently, he went to prison. Fraud is against the law, and people who perpetrate it should be in prison. Apparently, they are, and nothing in this bill changes that.
I was also struck by the previous speaker from the Democratic side who cited all of these constituent priorities and who didn't once mention the plight of middle-income workers, who are falling behind, whose paychecks are stagnant, and whose savings have been decimated. The National Small Business Association has found that 20 percent of small businesses had to reduce the number of employees as a result of tight credit. That is why we are working to get access to capital for small businesses.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), the chairman of the Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee, and who also happens to be the author of H.R. 4852, the Private Placement Improvement Act.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to answer the ranking member's question. We are here because we care about the plight of the working poor. We care about the fact that middle-income families are falling behind. The other side of the aisle has had 8 years of their economics, and we don't have a healthy economy. So we are growing the economy through this bill, and that is why it is so vitally important.
I must say, Mr. Chairman, I think it is the first time since coming here as a Member of Congress that I have heard a Hollywood film cited as an authority. If I recall the film, the guy went to jail, as he well should have.
I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), the author of H.R. 4850, the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act which would give our very small businesses and startups more flexibility to raise funds and create jobs for a better economy.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the chairman of the House Small Business Committee who knows how desperately these bills are needed to aid our small business growth.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt), vice chairman of our Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I would like to inquire how much time is remaining on each side, please.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), a distinguished member of our Committee on Financial Services.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, the American people continue to suffer in this lackluster economy.
I don't care what happy talk there is from Washington politicians, the American people know the economy is not working for them. They have anxiety about how they are going to pay their bills. Their paychecks are stagnant. Their savings have been decimated. And they look around, and where is the economic opportunity? Small business has been decimated in America. The job engine of America has been decimated.
As one of my constituents from Henderson County told me, when regulations get out of control, they put many small businesses out of business. And that is what we are seeing today, Mr. Chairman. People aren't getting ahead.
We need to unlock capital for our innovators, for our entrepreneurs, for our small businesses. We have three modest bills today that are doing just that. And yet we are being fought tooth and nail by those who want to grow Washington's economy and not the Main Street economy; those who believe that Washington bureaucrats always know what is best.
This House must enact the Accelerating Access to Capital Act. You can't have capitalism without capital. Small businesses can't get it, innovators can't get it, entrepreneurs can't get it.
So it is time that we move forward. And there is great news for the minority, who must not realize--I wish they would study and see this-- we still have the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Investment Company Act of 1940, and it goes on.
You can't have an effective market without consumer protection. But guess what? We also must have capital formation if we are going to have a healthy economy for working families that are falling behind after 8 years of Obamanomics. We must pass H.R. 2357, the Accelerating Access to Capital Act.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I have some good news for my colleague from Washington. The Financial Services Committee has already passed a robust cybersecurity bill, and passed it on a strong bipartisan basis: 46-9. We look forward to working with all of our colleagues in the House to forwarding this bill, working with our colleagues on House Energy and Commerce Committee and others. It is a serious topic.
But I would also point out, Mr. Speaker, with respect to this extra disclosure, if cybersecurity is material, it already must be disclosed under current law. And I would add that, yet again, this is just one more burden, the subject matter of the motion to recommit, when we are trying to ease burdens on capital formation.
I would remind all of my colleagues again that a recent report from the National Small Business Association released just this week showed that 41 percent of small businesses said that the lack of capital is hindering their ability to grow their business. If they can't grow their business, they can't give raises, they can't expand, they can't promote. Twenty percent said they had to reduce--actually lay off employees--as a result of tighter credit. That is the whole purpose, Mr. Speaker, of why we are passing this bill today. It is to grant greater access to capital.
We have heard from so many small businesses and angel investors across the Nation about the need for capital formation for our entrepreneurs, for our small businesses, for our innovators. We have heard from the cofounder and CEO of NextSeed: ``Obtaining traditional financing from banks is still a tall order for many small businesses, especially for smaller amounts.''
Well, we want to respond to that.
We don't need yet one more hurdle from the motion to recommit to get in the way of small businesses' end capital. It is also one more out- of-pocket cost. We heard from the senior partner at Centerfield Capital: ``These out-of-pocket costs and time spent by our professionals on SEC registration and compliance detract from our mission of empowering small businesses to grow.''
We want to empower small businesses on Main Street to grow, yet the motion to recommit would do just the opposite.
Nothing could be more obvious than a quote from the gentleman, the CEO of Wilde & Company: ``When corporations access capital, they hire people.''
We want people hired. We want people promoted. We want people on good career tracks. We want middle-income people to rise. We want the working poor to become members of middle-income America, and they can't do that unless we access capital.
The choice again is: Are we going to have another top-down, Washington-grown economy, or are we going to build our economy from Main Street up?
House Republicans say it is time to build it from Main Street up. So it is time that we reject the motion to recommit and assure that our small businesses can access capital so that we can grow this economy, grow the family economy, and have a better America.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source