Mike Johanns

One of the things that American agriculture is facing is that 95 percent of the world's population does not live here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And let me just say how much I appreciate you calling this hearing today.

I voted against Dodd-Frank. I don't share the enthusiasm that the chair does.

The Budget Control Act was passed with significant bipartisan support. It was signed by the President of the United States; it is the law.

I just caution you to tread very, very carefully into this area because there is nothing that is more controversial, more hotly debated.

When I came here 4 years ago, 4.5 years ago, the SEC was reeling from the Bernie Madoff scandal and the fallout from that; how could that possibly have been missed?

There is a huge debate on the appropriate approach to campaign finance.

The concern here--the American public is fearful that in this massive amount of data you get...

So now you have gotten into phone records. You have gotten into who they might be Googling.

So the methodology would be what is put into a secure environment called 'detail records.' These are to/from records and at a selected time.

If we as politicians want to boost home ownership, do a program to boost home ownership.

Without that, we do not know where we were at.

Is it a doable model to move them off the Government guarantee program?

A nationalized housing market with an implicit Government guarantee, I would argue, is not good government.

It seems to me that there is healing going on.

Let me focus on some specific items that are of interest to me. I want to start out with the GSEs.

The Supreme Court has weighed in, upheld the validity, said this is a tax.

I appreciate the candor of your response, I really do.

In terms of the law itself, a very complicated piece of legislation.

There's always a day of reckoning with the IRS, though, isn't there?

I have great respect for what you folks do.

When will you have details about how the IRS intends to enforce the mandate?

I believe it to be beyond debate that the Congressional intent of financial regulatory reform was to protect those end users that utilize the derivatives markets to mitigate legitimate business risk.

The law will require approximately 50 changes to the tax code, very complicated in many respects.

I think we're trying to be very fair, very bipartisan about this.