Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the gentlelady's amendment. I appreciate her work and interest on this important issue; but with all due respect, this amendment would defeat the entire purpose of the bill. If adopted, all advisers to private equity who are currently undergoing the burdensome and unnecessary registration process would still be required to do so. Additionally, it would establish an entirely subjective, so-called ``simplified'' compliance standard that would have to be defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. There is no reason to believe that such a so-called simplified standard would provide any meaningful relief for those private equity companies investing in small companies across this country. As has been stated, small and mid-sized private equity firms are expending hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual compliance costs and would still have to be registered with the SEC. Instead of addressing this problem, this amendment, if adopted, would continue to restrict the ability of small and mid-sized private equity firms to invest in small businesses. As Members of both parties have pointed out, there are not persuasive arguments that private equity generates systemic risk; and, indeed, to the extent that leverage at the fund level could potentially trigger such risk, we have already adopted a standard proposed by Mr.…”