The Chandler & Brownboro Statesman - U.S. Congressman Jeb Hensarling visited Athens for town hall meeting

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Hensarling's town hall meeting, at the Henderson County Senior Citizens Center with over 50 people in attendance, was purposed to speak about his continued fight to keep Washington accountable to East Texans, and to answer any questions that citizens might have.

Hensarling began the meeting by recognizing the several Veterans in the crowd by thanking them for their service to the Country.

Hensarling then began speaking about one of his concerns saying, "Washington politicians look at our struggling economy and assume the magic elixir to our nation's woes is more regulation and more regulators with the power to decide what is best for Americans. East Texans look at the state of our economy and realize Washington's "fix' is what got us into this mess in the first place."

Hensarling said "As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, my number one goal has been more jobs and a healthier economy for all. That means we've got to root out the job-choking red tape that hurts our economy, stifles competition, and erodes free enterprise. It means proposing solutions that alleviate the heavy burdens these regulations impose, and protecting American consumers by holding Washington accountable."

Hensarling then opened the floor for questions from the citizen. Most of the questions surrounded the Nation's ecomomy, the Department of Education the Bureau of Labor Management (BLM) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPU).

"One of those Washington regulators is the CFPB -- perhaps the most powerful and least accountable government agency in the history of the republic. The CFPB and its unelected director were given unbridled, discretionary power over everyday financial products like credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages. Not only does this agency have the power to make these products less available and more expensive, it has the power to make them completely unavailable to East Texas consumers," Hensarling said. " At the same time, the CFPB is collecting massive amounts of Americans' personal financial data -- data on 53 million mortgages, 991 million credit cards, and 8.6 million credit reports to date -- all stored in a database the CFPB has acknowledged is not secure. All the while, the CFPB is also spending $140 million dollars of hard-earned taxpayer money to renovate an office building it doesn't even own, " Hensarling continued. "If the CFPB isn't the very definition of Washington waste and abuse, I don't know what it is. That is why the House passed H.R. 3193, the Consumer Financial Freedom and Washington Accountability Act -- a package of common-sense reforms designed to make the CFPB more accountable and transparent to the American people."

Hensarling also talked about what is on the horizon for his committee in the next few months. "East Texans are tired of the "Washington insider economy,' where success is secured through government-granted favors to elites who have the best political connections. This practice of government picking winners and losers is a destructive, immoral force that misdirects resources, breeds corruption, and undermines the legitimacy of both our government and free enterprise. In a word, it isn't fair," He continued, "The next battle between the Washington insider economy and America's free enterprise Main Street economy will center on the Export-Import Bank, which is something I've devoted my time in Congress to fighting. The bank, whose charter is up for reauthorization before the Financial Services Committee later this year, is a source of corporate welfare that puts taxpayers at risk in order to lower costs for a few big corporations to sell their goods overseas. Previously, the bank has provided taxpayer-backed financing to oilrich Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates and to Mexico's stateowned oil company, Pem-Ex. With roughly 80 percent of the bank's loan guarantees for fiscal year 2012 going to a single company, the Export-Import bank is the very definition of cronyism."

In closing, Hensarling said, "Rather than defend corporatist boondoggles like the Export-Import Bank, Congress should stand up for free enterprise and the Main Street economy. We should be working to make businesses more competitive by repealing Obamacare and Dodd- Frank and reducing the tsunami of red tape unleashed by other Obama regulatory agencies. We should work for fundamental tax reform that creates a fairer, flatter, simpler tax code that makes Henderson County businesses more competitive. This is what the people of East Texas want and deserve, and this is what I will continue fighting for."

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