Tom Rice

Government does not create jobs or produce long-term economic growth--the private sector does.

This is absolutely unacceptable. Clearly we must do better.

Washington is a big part of the problem.

Representative Woodall, that is exactly what this resolution is intended to do. It is intended for Congress to take action to enforce the Constitution. Representative Woodall, do you hear from your constituents back home when you speak to…

As you said, Representative Woodall, I am an American first and a Republican second, and if the President usurps the Constitution, I will call him to task.

Thank you, Mrs. Roby. I yield to my friend and colleague from Utah (Mr. Stewart).

I would like to know if ours are--I just keep hearing that ours are very much more strict, and that is one of the reasons why our shipping fleet has dropped from 1,000 American-flag ships in international commerce to 80.

We know we are not going to have these 100-percent funding levels. We know that.

Well, you know, I mean, there are excesses in every department, in every entity.

We are spending far more money than we take in, almost 40 cents on the dollar.

Looking at the Coast Guard missions listed here, 11 statutory missions, to fully implement these--and looking, also, at this table that shows how many of these missions were met and how many weren't met, it looks like we are about 50/50…

What you need is you need a centralized definition that Bank of America is using, that Wells Fargo is using, that Lending Club is using, that we are using so that we can actually have a proper dialogue about what a small business is.

My primary focus is jobs and American competitiveness. And I truly believe that competitiveness is measured in small degrees.

So if we are saying that, you know, small banks are declining, that historically they have had over half of the small business loans, wouldn't it be logical to assume that additional Federal regulation is one of the reasons why they are…

Now, additional Federal regulation, whether it be Dodd-Frank or any other Federal regulation, increase compliance cost. Correct?

Can we translate that an increased presence of the Federal Government in the banking system through Dodd-Frank has led to a reduction in jobs?

So we are penalizing small banks with this additional regulation under Dodd-Frank, we are penalizing small businesses with this additional regulation under Dodd-Frank.

When you put constraints on the ability of people to get capital, it has follow-on effects in the economy.

I am confused. I thought we were trying to protect the middle class here.

So that is another aspect of this law that attacks the middle class.

I think this law is fundamentally flawed. Perhaps more so. I think it threatens our economy perhaps more than most...

What we are doing is we are actually, probably expanding income disparity, expanding access to capital.

Does it not take away your ability to do exactly that?

I do believe that we need to take a very close look at this law.

Well, if I am bouncing between the economists and regulators and the truckers, I am going to take the truckers every time.