Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I spent 28 years in the private sector before entering public service. In fact, in 2010 I was working at RightNow Technologies in my hometown of Bozeman, MT. We were growing a technology company there. We were creating good, high-paying jobs in Montana--in fact, about 500 jobs there.

While I was working to grow jobs back home in Montana, President Obama and a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate were passing legislation that stifled job creation--in fact, costing our economy billions of dollars and penalizing small local banks and credit unions for the wrongdoings committed by bad actors on Wall Street.

I am talking about Dodd-Frank. Since Dodd-Frank's passage, the number of federally insured credit unions in Montana fell by over 10 percent. The number of Montana State chartered banks fell over 34 percent, from 64 to 44. This is no surprise because Dodd-Frank empowered more than 10 Federal agencies to write more than 400 new rules, imposing 27,000 mandates, many of which fell on these local banks and credit unions.

These small community businesses don't have the ability to keep up with the onslaught of these new rules, new regulations, and guidance constantly coming out of Washington following Dodd-Frank, and the customers are suffering.

Small local banks and credit unions are uniquely capable of knowing their customers and providing tailored financial services to meet their customers' individual circumstances. Dodd-Frank stripped this customer advantage away by making prohibitively difficult any loans that don't comply with the cookie-cutter regulations.

It is interesting that in that debate back in 2010, many Republicans warned our colleagues on the Democratic side about this, but virtually every Democratic Senator then voted for Dodd-Frank. This difficulty fell particularly hard on Montana's entrepreneurs, who are self- employed and don't typically have wage income. Entrepreneurship runs deep in Montana. These banks and credit unions are truly part of our community. They know their customers, and they are able to make loans for their needs. They can determine the risk and make sure they are making good loans. They serve up-and-coming small business owners, moms and dads working to keep the family business afloat, and countless farmers and ranchers across Montana.

Dodd-Frank has suffocated Montana's rural banks and credit unions and, ultimately, it is the people of Montana who use these banks and these credit unions, and they are the ones who have been hit the hardest.

I wasn't here in 2010 when this bill was passed. Let me just state that had I been on this floor then, I would have voted no on Dodd- Frank's passage. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Democratic Senators voted yes--virtually every one of them. But I will state that I am really happy to be here now to help undo some of the damage caused to our rural communities and the people of Montana.

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