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Regulatory Reform

Floor Speech

Date: May 23, 2018
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Business and Consumers Finance and Banking

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, finally, speaking of community banks, yesterday marked a big step forward for local lenders across the Nation that have been crushed by the regulatory burden of Dodd-Frank. Yesterday afternoon, our colleagues in the House passed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which the Senate had passed earlier this year. Now it will head to President Trump's desk for his signature.

This is the culmination of extensive bipartisan work, led by Senator Crapo and his colleagues on the Banking Committee, to give smaller community lenders relief from Obama-era overregulation.

I frequently discuss how our Democratic colleagues' top-down policy agenda worked well for a select few but left much of the rest of the Nation behind. This issue is a perfect illustration of that. Our Democratic colleagues produced a hastily written rule book for Wall Street and then forced it on the rest of America, including community banks and credit unions in my State of Kentucky and across the Nation.

These local institutions are vital economic contributors. Their unique ability to build relationships and local connections are why community banks handle a majority of all U.S. small business loans and almost 80 percent of agricultural loans. That is why research suggests that closure of a single physical bank in a low-income neighborhood can reduce lending to nearby businesses by almost 40 percent.

Community banks and communities that depend on them needed relief from Dodd-Frank. They needed sensible reform that streamlined that inefficient, imprecise, one-size-fits-all regulatory approach. Thanks to Chairman Crapo, our Banking Committee colleagues, Chairman Hensarling, and our colleagues in the House, that is exactly what this Congress and this President are poised to deliver.

This legislation is a major bipartisan achievement. I am pleased that we are adding it to last year's historic tax reform, our record use of the Congressional Review Act to roll back overregulation, and all the other policy accomplishments that are helping to reignite American prosperity.

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