Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I congratulate him for his leadership on this effort. I thank my friend, Chairman Bachus, for his facilitating the passage of this legislation. Community banks, Mr. Speaker, are the life blood of our local economies. They are locally owned and operated. They know their local businesses and residents intimately, and lend to them, not just because it's a sound business decision, but also because it benefits the greater community. With the credit and lending crisis we have experienced over the past couple of years, the small banks that operate in our local communities face numerous challenges just to stay afloat. These are the banks we need to see lending to small businesses and homeowners, but they are hamstrung in their attempt to raise capital by outdated SEC registration requirements. This one is over half a century old. Under the nearly 50-year-old 500 investor exemption rule, banks have to register with the SEC if they have more than 500 shareholders. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes), whose bill this is, explained why that is difficult and why it changes as people who have stock die and leave their stock to more people and to heirs. Banks that have exceeded this low threshold must provide extensive and costly financial disclosure under our Federal securities laws. Now, over the years, we have upped the threshold in terms of dollars that the bank assets have, but we have not affected the number of shareholders.…”