Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010--Continued

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I understand amendment No. 3987 has been called up by the manager of the bill, and I think it has been made pending, so I wish to speak to it. I hope at the appropriate time we will be able to get an agreement for a vote on it, and I will ask for the yeas and nays following my remarks.

This amendment is a very simple, straightforward one. It is one paragraph long. It is not complicated. What it essentially does is it sets a sunset date for the newly created bureau of consumer protection, allowing Congress to reevaluate the bureau after 4 years.

I think most Americans, if they knew we were creating a big new bureaucracy here in Washington, DC, would want us to have some oversight. They would want some accountability. They would want to make sure their tax dollars are being spent wisely and well.

This new consumer protection bureau will have lots of new Federal employees here in Washington, DC. It will spend hundreds of millions of dollars every single year. Yet Congress has literally no oversight or authority with regard to this new bureau.

It seems to me, at least, that when we have a fiscal situation as we have today in this country where we are running trillion dollar deficits literally every year, where our debts are continuing to pile up to the tune of doubling our Federal debt, publicly held debt in 5 years, tripling it in 10 years, we would want to do something to make sure that any new expenditure of taxpayer dollars is spent efficiently, effectively, and that we are being as frugal as we possibly can.

I, for one, would not like to see us go down this path. I don't think creating a huge new bureaucracy here in Washington, DC, is necessary. I think we can address the issue of consumer protection through existing agencies and authorities. Frankly, I wish to see this particular title in this legislation go away entirely, but it doesn't look as though that is going to happen. We offered an amendment earlier this week that would have been a substitute for this consumer protection title in the bill and addressed it in what we think is a more reasonable way, but that was voted down.

My amendment simply says that 4 years from now, once this bureau has been created, let's have it sunset, and then, if necessary, Congress can come back and reauthorize it. Congress then would have an opportunity to fine-tune it, perhaps. Congress would have an opportunity to look and see if it is performing the function it was intended to perform; whether it is doing it in an efficient and cost-effective way. Clearly, we have a responsibility to the American taxpayer to have some accountability with this new bureaucracy we are going to create as a result of this legislation.

It is straightforward. We have other agencies of government that we do this with--that we sunset, that we reauthorize. We just did that with the CFTC, which is an agency that was reauthorized during the farm bill last year. When we did that, we were able to fine-tune its mission. It also gives
the opportunity to reorganize an agency, if it has to go through a reauthorization process and a sunset process. I don't think it is asking too much, when we are talking about literally hundreds of millions of dollars
annually and what would appear to be thousands of new Federal employees in this new agency, and what would also appear to be incredibly broad and vast new powers and authorities that will be unchecked because there isn't any accountability to the Congress--Congress is not going to appropriate annually as we do with most agencies the power of the purse. This is all going to be run through the Federal Reserve. Yet it is taxpayer dollars that are at risk here. It is taxpayer dollars that are being used to finance this new bureaucracy.

I hope my colleagues will be able to find their way to support this amendment. I think it is a reasonable approach. Again, I don't think it is asking too much. The American taxpayers are paying the bills every year for this government and are having to deal with the burden of debt we are piling on them because of the spending going on in Washington. Of course, if you look at what we are spending this year and what we spent last year in the Federal Government, much of it was borrowed. Out of all the spending last year, about 43 cents out of every dollar was borrowed. This year it is about 39 cents out of every dollar. When we are running those kinds of deficits and piling up that kind of debt with this kind of spending going on in Washington and the fiscal problems we have as a Nation, it makes perfect sense to me. I think it makes perfect sense to the American taxpayer. If we are going to create a huge new bureaucracy--which I said I don't believe is necessary, but, nonetheless, if it is going to happen in this legislation--let's take a look at this again 4 years from now. Let's allow it to sunset and allow us to go through a process where we reauthorize, reevaluate and review and see if it is functioning the way it is intended, and whether these authorities and powers created by this new bureaucracy is what the American people want to see happen.

One final point I will make. There are lots of entities out there other than banks that are worried about this particular title of the bill because of the rulemaking authority that exists. We have auto dealers, jewelry businesses, furniture stores, orthodontists, and lots of small businesses that are concerned they are going to be covered by the reach of this new agency with these broad new authorities with very little accountability and oversight by the Congress. That is a concern to a lot of small businesses to whom we look to create the jobs and, hopefully, initiate an economic recovery in this country and get the economy growing and back on track. This, in fact, could put lots of new burdens, lots of new bandaid, lots of new costs on many of these small businesses. That is yet another reason why I believe this is a bad idea in the first place, but at a minimum we ought to allow it to sunset so we have an opportunity to review it and reevaluate it and make some decisions with regard to its future 4 years from now.

It is very straightforward. It is one paragraph long. Sunset the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and allow Congress to reevaluate that bureau after 4 years.

I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays and would hope at the appropriate time to be able to have a recorded vote.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source