Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished chairman for yielding, and I appreciate my friend, Mr. Emmer, for introducing this bill to make this very modest change which does help community banks allocate capital and make more mortgage loans out there in our country. I would say to my friend from Minnesota, who knows I have great respect for him and his eloquence, that no one on this side of the aisle is any less interested in justice than he is. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that, as the chairman noted, this bill does nothing about eliminating protections under the Fair Housing Act or protections under the fair lending act for discrimination in housing or lending for minorities in this Nation. This is really, instead, about continuing the theme of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which is to relieve some burden for the smallest financial institutions across the country. The act, for example, exempts institutions with less than $50 million in assets that are in an MSA from requiring any reporting. The act, for example, exempts small banks under $50 million that are not in an MSA from any reporting. So Mr. Emmer's bill simply continues on that theme while protecting justice and while protecting the ability to have data to make sure that we, in fact, in this country, have fair lending. If this requirement were enacted, community lenders would be required to collect more than double the amount of data points they do now.…”