Press Releases

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act by a vote of 233-186 today. Sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX-5), the bill title stands for Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs.

Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA-12) released the following statement in support of the Financial CHOICE Act:

“In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, House Democrats, under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, made empty promises to the American people with the Dodd-Frank Act.  In Georgia, we saw firsthand the negative effect of Dodd-Frank on our financial sector, with more than 90 banks closing their doors.

Today, House Republicans have finally fixed the broken promises of the Obama Administration by passing the Financial CHOICE Act. This legislation will deliver regulatory relief to community banks across America and will end taxpayer-funded bailouts, once and for all. I was proud to vote for this important legislation today.”

In recent weeks, Congressman Allen heard from community bankers across the 12^th District, urging his support of the Financial CHOICE Act. Congressman Allen heard from a community banker at a Middle Georgia Bank based in Dublin, GA:

“The CHOICE Act will go a long way toward letting community bankers be bankers again rather than paper-filler-outers for the government. All bankers want is to be able to take chances on people who have dreams and those dreamers don’t always fit in the neat boxes drawn by Washington bureaucrats.

Dodd-Frank was supposed to stop abuses on Wall Street, but in doing so, it’s tamped down lending on Main Street and required all banks especially smaller ones to spend an inordinate amount of money on checking governmental boxes versus utilizing both those time and monetary resources to help individuals and small businesses climb a little further up the economic ladder.

Dodd Frank with its onerous rules and regulations has tried to paint us as folks just looking to take advantage of our customers.  No community banker would ever purposely take advantage of a customer that they will constantly see in church, at a community event or a kid’s baseball game.  That would be suicide to our business model and everything we stand for.  

CHOICE is the first effort to let community bankers get back to doing what they know best: serving the needs of their communities…”

The Financial CHOICE Act will:

• Provide regulatory relief from the post Dodd-Frank supervisory regime for banking organizations that maintain high levels of capital. (Most community banks already maintain the level of capital required to be eligible for regulatory relief.)

• End “Too Big to Fail” and bank bailouts once and for all by creating a new chapter of the bankruptcy code to accommodate the failure of a large complex financial institution.

• Impose enhanced penalties for financial fraud and self-dealing and promote greater transparency and accountability in the civil enforcement process.

• Make all financial regulatory agencies subject to the REINS Act, and place them under the appropriations process so that Congress can exercise proper oversight.

• Unleash opportunities for small business, innovators and job creators by removing sections and titles of the Dodd-Frank Act that limit capital formation.

• Empower Americans to achieve financial independence by fundamentally reforming the CFPB and protecting investors and retirement savings.

• Repeal the Department of Labor’s harmful fiduciary rule.

• Lower the deficit by $33.6 billion over 10 years.

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