On the recordOctober 25, 2011
Last week I met with over a dozen community bankers in my congressional district. They are concerned for ``the tsunami of regulations'' coming out of Washington, D.C. Now, these are not Wall Street bankers, these are small town bankers. They told me, ``Washington regulators have their feet on the throats of small community banks who did not cause this economic downturn.'' The real life consequences of Dodd-Frank on our community banks impact our local small businesses, our communities' job creators. The reason is simple: Paying more money to comply with complicated, costly, meaningless regulations means fewer loans out the door for small businesses. Higher costs for compliance is why Main Street Bank in Kingwood, Texas will close three branches this week. It simply costs too much money to stay in the community banking business these days. When community banks close there are fewer opportunities for small business owners to access capital. I often hear small business owners say they can't get loans. This is why. These are the real consequences of burdensome, costly, ineffective Federal regulations. And that's just the way it is. ____________________
