Mike Johanns

I thank the Senator from Kansas for bringing this up, because this is a very important issue, and not just in Nebraska, but across the country.

I will submit my questions.

I would offer this, if you could take out the Nebraska file, and I hate to sound so parochial, but my office would be more than willing to work with you to see how we can make this program more relevant for our State.

Entities located in Nebraska have received grant awards totaling $5.8 million over 20 years.

I would welcome you to Nebraska sometime, and we will get a business roundtable together.

Small businesses really are frustrated with Obamacare, very frustrated.

We especially need to do more for our country's small businesses.

Unfortunately, I believe many current policies are hindering rather than helping growth.

I don't know of a Senator that opposes it. Maybe there is one out there that I haven't come across yet.

This is not a Republican versus Democrat issue. The measure has gained strong bipartisan support.

I can state unequivocally Congress never intended for nonfinancial end-users to be subject to costly margin requirements.

The budget request you are making this year admittedly is sizeable. I appreciate you are a little bit different circumstance.

Would you be confident in testifying to the subcommittee today that under the current atmosphere, the current approaches, that Madoff could not repeat what he did some years ago?

The SEC--and I acknowledge this was prior to your time. But it failed to detect Ponzi schemes like Madoff, Stanford; didn't sound the warning on the collapse of the U.S. financial system--or near collapse.

The budget has grown from $377 million to $1.35 billion in 2014, very, very significant growth by any definition.

Oversight is important, and the rules we have are designed to prevent that sort of incident from taking place.

We have to make sure that we are executing on these key mission activities.

I think by anybody's definition that is significant.

Total discretionary spending is due to increase this year by about $1.4 billion--or in the next budget year, I should say.

We ask that you improve transparency in our securities markets, uncover fraud and deception, without over-regulating our markets and hindering economic growth.

Your agencies have an obligation to protect consumers, hopefully, from the next Madoff, MF Global, or Stanford.

We all benefit from a system that promotes fair and orderly markets.

I ask you to be persistent in trying to work together and coordinate with your fellow regulators.

I am concerned that it is not on schedule, and I want to learn more about that.

I do look forward to hearing from the witnesses today regarding the details of your requests as well as your plans to carry out core missions and implement Dodd-Frank in a responsible manner.