Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act--Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, later today, we will have a decisive vote on the financial regulatory bill that does nothing to reform the government-sponsored enterprises that many people believe to have been at the root of the financial crisis this bill grew out of--a bill that was meant to rein in Wall Street but which is now supported by some of Wall Street's biggest banks and opposed by small community banks in my State; a bill that is meant to help the economy but which is widely expected to stifle growth and kill more jobs in the middle of a deep recession; and a bill that, according to the papers, the vast majority of Americans simply don't think will work.

As it turns out, the American people don't seem to like this government-driven solution to the financial crisis any more than they liked the Democrats government-driven solution to the Nation's health care crisis. They do not think this bill will solve the problems in the financial sector any more than they think the health care bill will lead to lower costs or better care. One survey this week indicates that 7 in 10 Democrats have little confidence the proposals in this bill will avert or lessen the impact of another financial catastrophe, and nearly 70 percent of them doubt it will make their savings more secure.

It is easy to see why. The Wall Street Journal calls this bill's 2,300 pages ``the biggest wave of new Federal financial rulemaking in three generations.'' The chairman of the Banking Committee has famously said last month we would not know how this bill works until it is in place. But here are some initial indicators about its scope according to a study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the new bureaucratic landscape under this bill: 70 new Federal regulations through the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, 54 new Federal regulations through the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 11 new Federal regulations through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 30 new Federal regulations through the Federal Reserve, and 205 new regulations through the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Those are just some of them. All told, this bill would impose 533 new regulations on individuals and small businesses, regulations that will inevitably lead to the kind of confusion and uncertainty that will make it even harder for struggling businesses to dig themselves out of the recession. It is just this kind of uncertainty that will deter lending and freeze up credit as lenders wait to see how they will be affected by the new regulations. It is just this kind of uncertainty that businesses cite time and time again as one of the greatest challenges to our economic recovery.

So here is a bill that fails to address the root causes of the kind of crisis it is meant to prevent, that creates a vast new unaccountable bureaucracy, that--if past experience is any guide--will lead to countless burdensome, unintended consequences for individuals and small businesses; a bill that constricts credit and stifles growth in the middle of the worst economic period in memory; and perhaps most distressing of all, a bill that punishes farmers, florists, doctors, retailers, and countless others across the country and far away from Wall Street who had absolutely nothing to do with the panic of 2008.

In other words, once again, the administration and its Democratic allies in Congress have taken a crisis and used it rather than solving it. How else can you explain the fact a bill that was meant to address the excesses on Wall Street is expected to hit individuals and industries that had nothing to do with the crisis it was meant to prevent?

Did anybody think when this bill was first proposed that it would end up hurting storefront check cashers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers, credit bureaus, and farmers in places such as Kansas and Kentucky?

This is precisely the kind of thing Americans are tired of--a government simply out of control. Only in Washington would you create a commission aimed at looking into the causes of a crisis, then put together and pass a 2,300-page bill in response to that crisis before the commission even has a chance to report its findings and issue recommendations. The White House will call this a victory. But as credit tightens, regulations multiply, and job creation slows even further as a result of this bill, they will have a hard time convincing the American people this is a victory for them.

Obviously, I will be opposing this bill, and I would encourage my colleagues to oppose it as well.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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