Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for yielding. I rise to express my support for H.R. 4293, the Stress Test Improvement Act. I also want to commend my colleague Representative Zeldin for his work on this important issue. Those of us who travel our districts to speak with the men and women who work at financial institutions are well aware of the high costs and lack of clarity in the stress test process. Companies are being forced to dedicate substantial resources and immense amounts of time to go through the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, or CCAR, and the Dodd-Frank Act Stress Tests, DFAST. I have spoken to compliance staff who reported submissions in the tens of thousands of pages. For each dollar or staffer put towards CCAR or DFAST, there are fewer resources being dedicated to innovation or helping customers. Of course, we all believe that stress tests can and should be useful experiences. Some of the information turned up in stress tests could be helpful, but we are desperately in need to enact meaningful reform to provide better transparency, clarity, and reduce undue burden. Columbia University Professor Charles Calomiris described the process as one in which ``regulators punish banks for failing to meet standards that are never stated.'' Let me repeat that: ``. . . failing to meet standards that are never stated.'' It is sort of a Kafkaesque creature of our bureaucracy.…”