Date: 2016-04-27
Speaker: MAXINE WATERS (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker and Members. we have heard a lot of conversation from the opposite side of the aisle about what the SEC has done or has not done. As a matter of fact. it was represented that the SEC had misinterpreted the bill. That is not true. We absolutely need rules of the road. We need to make sure that we are protecting investors. We need to make sure that we are not allowing folks to be put at great risk who dont understand or know what is happening in these rooms. I am concerned about these demo days on campuses where students may be encouraged in these presentations to invest their parents money or get their parents involved in schemes that they may not be aware of. Why is this so important to us? It is important to us because we have arrived at a time in the Congress of the United States where we recognize the need for consumer protection. Prior to the recession that we had that was created in 2008 because of the subprime meltdown and the faulty products that were placed out in the marketplace by banks and financial institutions. consumers were really ignored and not protected. We have payday loans that target our communities that charge 400 to 500 percent interest and take advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We have all of these fraudulent mortgages that almost brought this country down. that created a recessionalmost a depressionand we are still finding out about some of the exotic products that they put out on the market that tricked people into signing on the dotted line who eventually lost their homes. We have the fiduciary duty that we have been debating in Congress. Do you know why we are debating that? We are debating that because we have investment advisers who were in conflict with the people they were supposed to be protecting and supposed to be advising. and they literally were advising seniors. who had savings for their retirement. to invest in plans that they would ultimately lose all of their money in. So in addition to payday loans and fraudulent mortgages and conflict of interest and fiduciary. we have had mandatory arbitration and on and on and on. We have arrived at a time when Democrats are implementing DoddFrank. We are making sure that we have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is doing the work that had not been done all of these years. Yes. we are concerned about this. We supported the JOBS Act. We supported it with an amendment that I put in there that said that you must take reasonable opportunities to ensure that you know who these investors are. We are talking about accredited investors. folks who have resources. folks who know how this game is operated. folks who can protect themselves. They have lawyers. they have consultants. all of that. What we dont want iswe dont want these students and we dont want people who walk in off the street who may be presented with an opportunity that is not a real opportunity. For example. what if we had something like Corinthian that is a private. postsecondary school that we had to close down. or DeVry University. or the University of Phoenix. or the Trump University? Any of these could present themselves as credible businesses to be invested in. only to find out later that the students have been misled. they have not gotten jobs. they dont have anything. They have not made any money. We are saying this is another effort to simply protect those who oftentimes are the targets of the ripoffs and the fraud. I would ask my colleagues to support the amendment that I am going to put to the bill to make sure that they know who is in the room. I would ask them to support this simple amendment that was made in order in the Committee on Rules to make sure that we are protecting those investors and keeping them from getting ripped off. Now. some of my friends on the opposite side of the aisle would have you believe that we are not interested in capital formation. that we are not interested in entrepreneurship. that we are not interested in joint ventures. That is absolutely not true. As a matter of fact. folks on this side of the aisle are fighting to make the financial institutions responsible and the banks to make loans where they should be making loans. We have to have a CRA to make sure that they are doing what they should be doing with the depositors money and on and on and on. We fight for small businesses every day. We joined up with our colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle to support the JOBS Act even though we had some concerns. and the SEC tried to make sure that we had the kind of legislation that would protect these investors. Now they are saying: We dont like what the SEC is doing. They are misinterpreting it. They are messing this all up. Well. that is not true. Now. we know they dont like the SEC. As a matter of fact. they do everything that they can to limit their funding so that they cannot be effective. But these are our cops on the block. The SEC is our cop on the block to try and make sure that we limit the ripoff and the fraud and the undermining of average citizens in our society. We support the JOBS Act. We believe that we should not have these operations on the campuses without knowing who is in the room and allowing investors to be put at risk. Mr. Speaker and Members. I would ask for a "no" vote on the bill. I am going to ask for an "aye" vote on the amendment that is going to come up. If my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle accept this very. very reasonable amendment. then I will vote to support the bill. But if they dont show any concern or compassion for the interests of investors. then I cannot support the bill. and I will ask my caucus not to support the bill. It is as simple as that. When are we going to stop the fraudulent operations in this country that rip off working people every day. rip off students. and dont care about our investors who are interested in capital formation and investing in real enterprises that can help to grow their business and make some money themselves? When are we going to recognize we can do both? We dont have to just be on the side of those who would take advantage of people. We must be on the side of bothour investors who are willing to put up money and our businesses who need capital formationbut somehow we always end up letting the most vulnerable people in our society be the target of fraud by those who take advantage of them. Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.