Economic Security
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Subcommittee, issued the following opening statement:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing today to examine the potential for creating a covered bond market in the United States.
Today we convene to discuss covered bonds, and Representative Garret's covered bond bill, H.R. 940.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, released the following statement today after Republicans on the Committee announced their intention to defund foreclosure prevention programs:
"Republicans who support this proposal to end government-supported foreclosure prevention programs are turning their backs on their constituents and their communities who not only have been devastated by the foreclosure crisis, but who have directly benefited from government assistance.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) authored the following op-ed for the Afro American Newspaper.
House Republicans last week introduced a spending measure to fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year. And, perhaps not surprisingly, it is an extreme and indiscriminate assault on African Americans and other populations who have historically bore the brunt of budget cuts in the name of fiscal austerity: women, children, students, veterans, the poor, the homeless, communities of color, it goes on.
by Charles J. Lewis
Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, a veteran of Wall Street and housing finance, says he hopes to play a major role in the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two failed government-sponsored companies that have helped homebuyers get mortgages, but which are now in government custody.
Last week, the Obama administration urged Congress to consider options on reforming the two companies, which have cost taxpayers $154 billion so far, making them the most expensive bailout in the financial crisis.
`To play an active role'
By Stacy Kaper
Of all the things missing from a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the inconclusive Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report on the causes of the financial meltdown, the most obvious was any sense of irony.
Lawmakers' chief criticism of the report — that it broke down into a partisan skirmish with a fractured and confusing narrative about the causes of the crisis — was only mimicked and amplified by their own behavior.
Republicans criticized a government report on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis as biased and political on Wednesday. Democrats fired back that Republicans want to roll back federal regulations of the financial industry.
by Peter Schroeder
A hearing intended to explore the underpinnings of the financial crisis provided a fresh opportunity for lawmakers to fight ongoing partisan battles.
Six of the ten members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) appeared before the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday to discuss the panel's report, which marks the first official governmental take on the financial crisis that drove the recession.
by Sewell Chan
The government inquiry into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis was the focus of intense partisan bickering Wednesday at a House hearing.
Republicans called the final 545-page report a political exercise whose findings were mostly preordained, while Democrats defended its main conclusion: that Wall Street risk-taking and regulatory negligence combined to produce an avoidable disaster.
Seeking to assuage corporate executives, top U.S. regulators on Tuesday insisted that expected rules on holding collateral, or margin, will focus on financial institutions, rather than commercial companies worried about new costs that could limit their hedging activities.
"Proposed rules on margin requirements should focus only on transactions between financial entities rather than those transactions that involve non-financial end-users," said Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler at a Capitol Hill hearing on the $600 trillion derivatives market.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Committee, delivered the following remarks.
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman.