Date: 2016-02-04
Speaker: MAXINE WATERS (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman and Members. I would ask the Members of this Congress to not pay attention to what has been attempted by the opposite side of the aisle. Again. I challenged them and I asked them to talk about FIRREA. I asked them to talk about the bill that takes away the investigatory powers of the Justice Department. I asked them to explain why they would take away subpoena powers from the Justice Department. I asked them if they remembered what happened when this country went into a recession. almost a depression. because of predatory lending. I asked them did they want to have their name and their vote behind big banks that are guilty of fraud. who have been fined enormous sums of money by the Justice Department because they were found guilty. and I am asking them to talk about this. So this is a distraction. This is obscuring the real bill that is before us. Forget about this Choke Point part of the bill. We have time to work on that. There are some Members on the opposite side of the aisle that share some of those concerns. but not in this bill. They coupled it with this taking away of the Department of Justice power because they knew that they could somehow divert the attention over to the socalled Choke Point and talk about this administration and talk about guns and talk about payday loans and talk about rent to own and pawn shops and all that. This is not about small business protection. This is about using the Choke Point argument as a way to divert attention away from what they are really doing. Ladies and gentlemen. you cant go home and explain to your constituents why you would protect the too big to fail banks. why you would take away the power to make them accountable. They have harmed this country. They have harmed our citizens. They have caused people to lose their homes. and they have increased the homelessness with their predatory lending. We have reform that we are trying to implement. I know every trick in the book has been played to try to undermine DoddFrank and to keep us from having the kind of reform because there are people who are just very close to the big banks and they are not going to cross the big banks. As a matter of fact. they used too much of their career to protect the big banks. This is an outrage. I want the Members of this Congress to understand. we have got time to have a discussion about Choke Point and all of that. We have Members on both sides of the aisle who would work with you on those issues. This is not it. You should not have placed this part in this bill. You should not have had to try and make believe that this is all about Choke Point when. in fact. the real big deal in this bill is about how you are going to try to protect the biggest and the worst banks. We have pointed out to you in this discussion all of the big fines that have been imposed against these banks. Did these banks say. "No. we didnt do it"? Did these banks say. "I am not going to accept this. I am going to court. and I am going to fight"? You know they rolled over because they are guilty. and you know that they are. Please do not be diverted from the real meaning of this bill. This bill is about crippling the Department of Justice and not about Choke Point. I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR . The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Arizona