Floor Speeches & Committee Statements

July 24, 2009

CONTACT: Leslie Shedd (202) 225-5565

Floor Statement of
The Honorable Frank D. Lucas

Too Big to Fail, Too Small to Matter

MADAME SPEAKER. An uneven playing field already exists between large financial institutions and smaller community banks.  Rather than working to close this gap, however, President Obama has decided to further burden our community banks with his Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Under this new agency, community banks – who have continued to provide a reliable source of credit to their customers – will be saddled with additional costs and regulations that could potentially drive many out of business.  In addition, many of these increased costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher bank fees and less availability of credit.  So, exactly how is this supposed to help our current financial crisis?

It appears as though, once again, this administration plans to force Main Street to pay for the mistakes made on Wall Street as they continue to follow their financial policy of “too big to fail, too small to matter.”

Reform is needed within our financial system, but that reform cannot sacrifice the health of our small financial institutions.  THANK YOU. 

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