Jim Himes

I am looking at a number of pieces of this legislation, including some related to the SBICs, which I think are a very effective mechanism for financing smaller companies.

I think this is a really important exercise in making our capital markets more efficient, and better at allocating capital.

If you can't agree that defense, where we currently outspend all of our conceivable enemies combined by a factor of 4 to 1, if you don't see that as an opportunity to reduce spending, you are not serious.

I am actually very hopeful that we might have a good hearing today in which we discuss this in an honest fashion.

If you voted against raising the debt ceiling and preserving the full faith and credit of this country, you are not serious.

I can't help but observe that my friends on the other side of the aisle with their relentless barrage of criticism on your efforts... offer, as usual, no alternative.

I was very heartened by the lengthy discussion we had some time ago in which you were obviously committed to your mission and had an appreciation for the limits of your mission and the need you had, of course, to not overly regulate in…

This important rule requires mortgage lenders to make a good-faith, reasonable determination that borrowers can actually afford to pay back their loans.

Through fair rules, consistent oversight, appropriate enforcement of the law, and broad-based consumer engagement, the Bureau is helping to restore trust in consumer financial markets.

How does one tell the story of a predatory loan that didn't bankrupt an American family?

In my business, this is called 'push-pulling.' It is certainly leading the witness. It is certainly fear mongering.

I would like to just close by thanking you for our partnership and our work on this bill. I hope we can do more of the same. I thank Mrs. Wagner and Mr. Delaney, cosponsors of this bill, and Chairman Garrett for pushing this through. As we…

It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schneider), my colleague.

Too-big-to-fail is still with us, Congressman.

When that concern becomes ideology blind to all facts and economic advice and reality, it is something different than prudence.

I believe that a concern with our debt is prudent.

I completely agree. I don't think anybody up here disagrees, that over time we want to move to an actuarially-sound system.

The first is the very simple financial concept that risk should be managed and ultimately borne by the party that is in the best position to understand that risk.

I think most of us agree that the goal here is to find a well-balanced insurance structure that steps in where the private market fears to tread for as long as that holds true.

I think it is a tribute to us as Americans that when Americans are suffering anywhere, we don't act stingy.

What has changed is that we no longer do the hard work of finding finely balanced regulation like we do in water or in air. In financial services--in Dodd-Frank today--we have a morality play: either you repeal Dodd-Frank in its entirety…

I have been doing this for about 5 years, sitting in on this committee, and I don't think I have ever been quite as embarrassed as I am today by the tone and the substance of this hearing or by the way that you have been personally treated.

Once again, I sit down and listen to the majority talk so piously about the need for fiscal responsibility

Do you think Congress has done all it could in the last 3 years or so?

That kind of language and that kind of tone is beneath the dignity of this institution and earns us our single digit approval ratings, and it is violative of any standard of gentlemanliness that anybody sitting back here should presume to…