Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, the American people have been misled. They were incorrectly told that Dodd-Frank was meant to go after big banks and Wall Street. However, in my rural congressional district, the effects of this law and its close to 500 regulations have been devastating.

The total economic cost of Dodd-Frank-based regulations has eclipsed $35 billion and over 60 million hours of paperwork burdens. That is the equivalent of 30,000 employees a year dedicated solely to regulatory paperwork. A new army of regulators aren't the kind of jobs that Americans were promised.

The biggest and most costly regulation to come out of Dodd-Frank is the deceptively named Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an unconstitutional, uncontrollable, and unaccountable agency whose total negative impact on our economy won't be known for decades.

The CFPB was supposed to protect consumers from the predatory practices of financial institutions. Instead, it has limited Americans' access to credit, the ability to be financially independent, and impeded the availability of homes and, in this case, cars. The CFPB achieved this by hiring big, spending big, and regulating big.

The CFPB started with a staff of 178 in 2011 but now has close to 2,000 employees. In that same period, its annual spending grew from $10 million to, now, $600 million. The safest place to find a job in this government economy is with a Federal financial regulator. In the last 5 years, those regulators have seen a 16 percent increase in job growth.

The CFPB still has more regulations and guidance in its pipeline just ready to roll out and crush rural America. That is why this amendment is so important.

In the endless search for a job in this economy, many Americans are forced to migrate to urban areas. In 2013, over half of all the rural counties in the United States actually shrank in population. In 2014, according to the Department of Labor, rural counties lost 330,000 jobs, while metropolitan counties gained over 3 million jobs. The last thing Washington should be doing is authoring regulations which further enable this trend.

With adoption of H.R. 1737 and this amendment, we are telling the CFPB that, when you issue regulations like this, in addition to analyzing the impact on women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses, you must also take a look at those regulations' impact on rural businesses and rural consumers.

My amendment is a simple one, but it would go a long way to providing some clarity for the folks of Missouri's Eighth Congressional District and all of those Americans living in rural communities across the Nation. While 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might be looking at ways to make their life harder, this body, this Chamber, will continue to fight to make sure the Federal Government stays out of their way.

I thank my friend and colleague from New Hampshire for introducing this legislation. Burdensome regulation is a problem that hits rural America the hardest. I urge adoption of the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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