Family Self-Sufficiency Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, once again, Congress finds itself rushing to try to pass legislation to keep the government open; ensure that our youngest, most vulnerable Americans have access to health insurance; and protect young, aspiring Americans from being deported from the only country they have known as home. Yet here we are debating other things with the clock running out in the eleventh hour--issues that, no doubt, have a few people here and there who care about them, but zero people have called my office on, Mr. Speaker.

My constituents are demanding that we address access to the childhood healthcare insurance program and demanding that we act on the DREAMers with the deadline approaching and 100-plus DREAMers every day losing their status.

It sounds like, from all we are hearing, that the House is going to consider yet another short-term spending bill to maybe keep the government running for another 4 weeks or 6 weeks. It is actually the fourth short-term spending bill for this year, not allowing the Department of Defense to plan to keep our country safe and not allowing any of the departments across the Federal Government to make any of the investments they need or have any degree of certainty that contractors will be paid.

It is no way to govern, Mr. Speaker. Part of the reason that we are left doing this is we are using our precious floor time on all of these other issues like the ones before us today.

It is not that these issues don't deserve their day in the sun, and we will talk about them for the rest of the day today, apparently, but we are facing the closure of the entire Federal Government in 3 days if we don't act. We are doing the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. This is an absurd exercise in doing some narrowly tailored special interest bills rather than addressing what we all know to be the 1,000- pound gorillas in the room.

Seniors, military veterans, and people with disabilities shouldn't have to question whether they will actually receive their benefits month to month because we don't know whether the government will remain open. In the meanwhile, Republicans, Democrats, and the White House are all trying to put forward bipartisan solutions for the hundreds of thousands of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and DREAMers, and we could be debating that on the floor and putting together the final package now to do that by this Friday. But instead, we are discussing these bills that my constituents aren't telling me that they are sending me to Washington to pass.

A lot of my colleagues say that the deadline for DACA isn't until March, but, in reality, over 100 deferred action DREAMers every day lose their protected status as their benefits expire. Every day the Republicans fail to act, they are creating over 100 more illegal immigrants in this country. If Republicans fail to act by March, they will have created over 800,000 more people here illegally in our country.

We have about 18,000 DREAMers in Colorado able to work legally today. They have come from countries near and far in search of a better life for themselves and their families. They grew up in our schools, sports teams, cheerleaders, don't know any other country, and many of them don't speak any other language.

One DREAMer that I have gotten to know from Colorado is Anarely, whose family stayed in Colorado to help take care of their grandmother. Anarely is a triple major at Colorado State University, studying political science, ethnic studies, and international relations. She has built a life in Colorado--the only life she knows--and continues to build a bright future in the U.S. if we can give her the certainty with regard to her legal ability to work and, of course, take her place alongside other American citizens.

What makes America so great is we are a country of immigrants made up of people from all backgrounds, all quarters of the world. We embrace people from different cultures and different countries. We value the contributions based on the individual and the values of individual responsibility and hard work. That is what makes our country and our communities vibrant and our economy successful.

Mr. Speaker, a group of bipartisan House and Senate Members are working together to find a solution to protect DREAMers and improve border security. I am proud to cosponsor the USA Act, which we dropped yesterday with Mr. Hurd and Mr. Aguilar which would provide DREAMers long-term protections and improve our border security to prevent this kind of situation from happening again.

But instead of legislation that addresses long-term funding or protects aspiring Americans, here we are bringing bills to talk around the fringes about consumer protections and, of course, a bill that would chip away at reproductive health rights.

The rule we are debating today considers two pieces of legislation that are not anything to do with the expiration at the end of this week of government funding or the over 100 DREAMers who lose their status every day--the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the World Bank Accountability Act.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act has long been a tool to monitor the mortgage lending practices and patterns of financial institutions to ensure equal and fair access to credit. The information that lenders are required to report shows that they are meeting the housing financing needs of their communities. HMDA data is very important in fair lending assessments and helps make determinations of where to target community development resources.

Congress has made changes to HMDA as a response to legitimate concerns about the role that widespread predatory lending played in the financial

crisis. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was charged with updating how lenders report HMDA.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau adopted a standard for the new reporting requirements that took into account the burdens imposed on banks by new standards to ensure that the data is being reported to monitor fair lending practices to prevent another systemic meltdown like we had in 2008 and 2009.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even temporarily raised the reporting threshold eliminating the need for low-volume banks to report through 2019, in order to conduct research to determine the right way to document open-ended loans. We should not codify this threshold, removing the flexibility of the agency that we in Congress set up to prevent another financial meltdown. It would literally tie their hands and prevent them from acting, even if there was a need to, to prevent a financial meltdown.

I strongly support regulatory relief for community banks and small financial institutions. This bill would actually exempt 85 percent of depository financial institutions and 48 percent of nondepository lenders.

Congress should want to encourage increased access to housing finance and combat unlawful practices that can prey on vulnerable home buyers or lead to systemic risk which leads to people coming to this town demanding another Republican taxpayer bailout.

This rule also considers debate for H.R. 3326, the World Bank Accountability Act--another issue that does not relate to the expiration of government funding at the end of the week, does not relate to the illegal aliens that the Republicans are creating every day, and does not relate to the Children's Health Insurance Program expiring.

What it does is it places a restriction on funding to the World Bank International Development Association--again, something I am not hearing from my constituents on, that they are not sending me to Washington and demanding that I take action on--and try to get them to reform to improve their management accountability and fight extremism, which I am sure is fine. It is true that, of course, they probably need to improve accountability and oversight, and Congress can have this discussion, but here we are, backs to the wall, the government is about to close, DREAMers are facing deportation, children are going without healthcare, and, yes, of course, World Bank accountability, great, let's discuss it, but can't we do it next week after we get through this?

In fact, I believe the Republicans are sending us all on vacation next week. I think most Americans wish they had 10 days off at the end of January. I don't understand this. It makes no sense. I think Congress is about to do a last-minute funding bill and then send every Member of Congress on a 10-day vacation saying: Good job, we dealt with World Bank accountability. That is what the voters want. Forget about government shutdowns, forget about Republicans creating more illegal aliens, forget about Republicans plunging our Nation deeper into debt with their tax-and-spend policies. That is where we are headed, Mr. Speaker.

Of course, we should have a debate on the best way to make reforms in the U.S. and engage the World Bank to encourage those reforms.

Again, fiddling while Rome burns, Mr. Speaker, it is a common theme over here, and the American people are seeing through it, which is why the approval rating of this institution is under 15 percent--no shock.

We can be debating World Bank accountability every day for the next year if you want. That is why people think this body is out of touch. We are just not addressing or dealing with the issues the American people sent us here to deal with: skyrocketing debt; over 12 million people who are here illegally, and yet this Congress fails to take up comprehensive immigration reform; expiration of the Children's Health Insurance Program; fixing the Affordable Care Act.

Withholding funds to the IDA has a lot of positives and negatives. We could influence them to act. Others fear it could punish people in the developing world. It could hamper their ability to fight famine. It could force the necessary reforms.

Again, fine, we will have that discussion under this rule for an hour or two and Congress will debate that. Congress will pass a bill, and we will see whether the Senate even takes it up. They often don't.

But, again, it is backs to the wall, fiddling while Rome burns, the eleventh hour, record debt, Republicans creating more illegal immigrants every day, and here we are debating accountability for different aid programs.

The 15 percent must be, like, the family members and cousins of the Republican Members. I don't know anybody who is satisfied with this Congress, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, last week, President Trump tweeted: ``The Democrats are all talk and no action. They are doing nothing to fix DACA.'' That is deeply insulting to those of us who have worked so hard for years. I was even here when the Democrats passed the DREAM Act in December of 2010.

This is the 18th time we have attempted to bring up the bipartisan bill, H.R. 3440. We are about to do it again with my colleague, Mr. Gomez. The Dream Act makes our position clear. We want immigration policies that make America safer. We want to make sure that our aspiring, de facto Americans can take their place alongside of us with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

Unfortunately, President Trump made his position clear, as well. I am not sure which position; he changes every other day. But at times, he said he will sign whatever we do. At other times, he said:

My standard is very simple: America first, and Make America

Great Again.

That is an easy one. This bill we bring up if we defeat the previous question will absolutely make America greater. According to the conservative think tank CATO, repealing DACA would actually cost the government over $60 billion, reduce economic growth by $280 billion, and make us all poorer.

We just want to make America wealthier, make us better, and recognize the aspiring Americans and let them work hard and play by the rules and pay taxes and live the American Dream. That is an America first policy that we can all get behind.

This is the 18th attempt here to do this. But I am a Jewish American, and 18 is actually a lucky number. ``Chai'' means ``life,'' when you do the numerology. Mr. Gomez is lucky to be here for number 18. For our Jewish friends watching on C-SPAN, Mr. Speaker, they will recognize that. It is kind of like seven. I don't know if seven is a Christian lucky number or pagan or what, but I have heard seven is a lucky number, too.

But 18 means life, and this is life for the DREAMers. That is what Mr. Gomez's motion is all about: it is letting young people who have that uncertainty and don't even know if they can go to their job and work hard come March, or even come today or tomorrow for the over 100 a day whose status is expiring.

I really hope that my Republican colleagues join Mr. Gomez and me in defeating the previous question so we can bring up H.R. 3440, the Dream Act, which would pass this body, Mr. Speaker. You and I know that. It is bipartisan, bicameral. It would help thousands of young people who are Americans in every single way--de facto Americans, aspiring Americans--except on paper.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez) to discuss our proposal for the 18th time: chai, or life.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, here we go. We are finding ourselves staring down self- created deadlines, and I want to be clear about that. The deadline for the expiration of the DREAMers in March and the fact that 100 are expiring every day is self-created by President Trump. It is a manufactured crisis. We, of course, could do immigration reform while not having our backs to the wall on that issue.

This shutdown of the government is a construct of this body, this House. They said that they would only fund the government through January 19. So we are facing another deadline. Again, I believe, from what I am hearing, that Congress will then create another artificial crisis sometime in February, when we are going to be facing a government shutdown again.

All in the face of record deficits and tax-and-spend Republican policies, the American people have had enough.

Hundreds of thousands of DREAMers are at risk of deportation by this administration.

Millions of children are at risk of losing their health insurance.

We are all being plunged deeper and deeper into debt, not just for ourselves, but our future generations: my kids and many of our grandkids, for those who have them.

We are facing another government shutdown of necessary, important government services, including economic drivers in areas I represent, like Rocky Mountain National Park, with over 3 million tourists a year. It would close down if the government shuts down.

Air traffic controllers. So many other important parts of our necessary infrastructure to succeed as a country faces an expiration this Friday.

Even if somehow the Republicans say, ``Okay, here is another 2 or 3 weeks of funding,'' the uncertainty that that creates--meaning they can't plan for short- to medium-term capital projects: a simple repair that might take more than 3 weeks; knocking down a wall; fixing a building; making a hire and an employee not knowing whether they are going to have a job in 3 weeks, or contractors not knowing whether they are going to be paid, and then having to reflect that in their pricing and ultimately charging the taxpayers more for the work they are doing because they don't know if the government will pay.

What kind of country are we running, Mr. Speaker?

I know we can do better, and that starts by defeating the previous question so that we can just pass the Dream Act and move on. It will pass. Sixty, seventy, or eighty percent of this body will probably vote for it. I know there are people who don't like it. Let the people's House work its will. Let us vote. That is what we are here to do, Mr. Speaker--Republicans and Democrats. Let us work our will.

We have the votes on the Dream Act and we have the votes to keep the government open, if you simply allow us to have an open process to do it. That is what this floor time should be used for today. This is precious floor time--the time that we are in session debating-- especially considering Republicans are sending Congress on a 10-day vacation at the end of this week. Let's use this floor time to do what matters.

Sure, there will be a day to discuss the finer points of World Bank policies and the finer points of the threshold for regulatory forbearance for mortgage cutoffs. Those things are fine, Mr. Speaker. Those are fine to discuss, but not while the Republicans are creating over 100 more illegal immigrants a day and they are going to create 800,000 more in just a couple of months; not when the Republicans are plunging our Nation deeper and deeper into debt with their tax-and- spend policies; not when Republicans are forcing another government shutdown, if not this week, then in 3 weeks or in 4 weeks.

Crisis to crisis to crisis, manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis, the American people count on us to be stewards of the greatest Republic that has ever been created on the face of this Earth. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, Congress is letting them down. Let's defeat the previous question and defeat this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 693 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

This rule makes in order two bills reported favorably by the Committee on Financial Services. In addition, the rule makes in order a majority of the amendments submitted.

These bills were the subject of hearings in the Financial Services Committee, and both were marked up and reported favorably to the House. Both bills received bipartisan support in the committee, and I expect that we will see bipartisan support for both bills on the floor this week.

Mr. Speaker, formed in 1944, the World Bank is the oldest multilateral development bank. As a post-World War II effort of international cooperation, the goal of the World Bank was to fund reconstruction efforts in war-torn nations.

In 1960, the United States pushed for the creation of the International Development Association within the World Bank. Where the original World Bank division funded middle-income countries, the IDA was created to make concessional loans; that is, loans with low interest rates and long repayment periods to the world's poorest countries.

The number of countries served by the IDA currently stands at 75. The IDA is typically the single largest source of funding for critical social programs in these low-income countries. However, the bill before us reduces the United States' contribution to the IDA.

The IDA is funded through replenishments by donor countries. We are currently in the 18th replenishment period, known as IDA-18. The bill reduces the United States' contribution in IDA-18 by 15 percent. Further, the bill requires that the Treasury Department certify that the World Bank reform its practices and lending controls in relation to the IDA.

A 2016 report commissioned by the World Bank reveals serious problems with one particular IDA project in Uganda. While IDA's role is to reduce inequality and support the development of civil society, the report outlines numerous failures to achieve these objectives on the part of the IDA.

The report details how IDA financing of a project in Uganda led to systemic spreading of HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse of minors, child labor, retaliation against local citizens, gender-based violence, and other gross abuses of powerless Ugandans. While the IDA took several steps, including withdrawing some loans from this particular project, there is much concern that this project is indicative of many others.

The House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing at which testimony was received from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists indicating that governments that allow or participate in the abuse of their citizens and the subjugation of the poor have not been turned away by the World Bank.

The testimony reads in part: ``We found instead that the bank repeatedly funded governments that not only failed to adequately resettle communities, but in some cases were accused of human rights abuses such as rape, murder, and violent evictions associated with bank projects. We found in several cases that the World Bank continued to bankroll these borrowers

even after evidence of these abuses came to light.''

Mr. Speaker, the IDA has a quality control problem, and we are right in reducing their funding.

As if the abuse of citizens by corrupt governments is not enough, the committee has also uncovered evidence that the World Bank has serious internal problems as well.

According to the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank staff has long been incentivized to simply get more loans out the door without any incentive to ensure the quality of the projects. This has been a longstanding trend documented since the early 1990s.

But it is not just perverse incentives. The World Bank has not focused enough on rigidly guarding itself against internal corruption. A professor from Caltech testified before the committee that it was common for World Bank projects to be captured by corrupt governments and that World Bank staff try to suppress corruption investigations.

She said: ``Corruption investigations can shut down projects and derail careers. They are also inconvenient for senior management in the bank who are balancing delicate relationships with their country clients.''

Due to these problems, the underlying bill protects American taxpayers by withholding funding from the World Bank until these deficiencies are fixed.

Mr. Speaker, not only should we be holding international organizations accountable, we should also be holding our own government accountable, and the second bill made in order under this rule does just that.

In 2011, Dodd-Frank transferred to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regulatory authority over home mortgages. Since then, CFPB has made information reporting by lenders more extensive.

The impact of these increased regulations has led to greater costs to lenders. Consequently, smaller lenders have had to pass on these costs directly to potential borrowers. This has reduced access to affordable credit to borrowers who would typically seek out smaller lending institutions.

The underlying bill is simple: exempt small lenders from CFPB's onerous reporting requirements.

Under the leadership of Chairman Hensarling, House Republicans have consistently put forward a plan to reform the CFPB. However, until we can pass broader reforms, we should do everything we can to protect Americans from harmful regulations pushed on them by the CFPB.

Today, we have two bills before us that hold powerful organizations accountable to American taxpayers.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and these bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I remind my friend from Colorado that the House did pass the Children's Health Insurance Program bill in November. We did send it to the Senate. Perhaps if he could talk to the leadership in his party over in the Senate, we could get that bill passed in the Senate instead of blocked, and we could deal with a very important issue, an issue in Colorado that is absolutely essential, because the money is running out in Colorado, one of the few States where it is even more important than many of the other States.

I appreciate my colleague's concern on this issue. I share his concern. The House acted responsibly in a broad, bipartisan bill. Hopefully, we can get our friends over in the Senate to get more done.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), my good friend and the sponsor of one of the bills today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), chair of the Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Overlooking corruption and abuse is unacceptable in any governing body, particularly one funded by the United States.

It is clear that serious reforms and oversight are needed at the World Bank. The International Development Association has strayed from its mission to help combat inequality around the world.

The World Bank Accountability Act puts our international partners on notice that the United States is not simply going to stand by and allow abuses to continue.

And while we stand up for the underprivileged around the world, we also must ensure that every American has equal access to our own financial institutions.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act ensures that CFPB regulations do not shut out certain groups of Americans.

I thank Chairman Hensarling for putting these bills forward. I thank my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee, who have joined me on the floor today to make the case for these efforts. I thank Chairman Sessions for his leadership on the Rules Committee and for providing the debate on these issues today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the rule and supporting the underlying bills. We must ensure that American taxpayer money is not spent on corrupt regimes and that all Americans have access to financing here in the U.S.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4258) to promote the development of local strategies to coordinate use of assistance under sections 8 and 9 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 with public and private resources, to enable eligible families to achieve economic independence and self- sufficiency, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4258, the Family Self- Sufficiency Act. This legislation will streamline a program designed to help those unable to purchase a home while reducing their dependency on welfare assistance and rental assistance provided by the government.

I want to thank my colleague and friend from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver) for all of his bipartisan and helpful work on this legislation. It passed out of our committee 58-0, which is somewhat historic for the Financial Services Committee.

Now, the Family Self-Sufficiency Act, or FSS program, is focused on helping families in public housing and the housing choice voucher program. The goal is to utilize a number of services coordinated through the program to help families with individual training to increase their employability and become less dependent on assistance.

These services can include basic education, childcare, transportation, education, financial literacy, mental health referrals, and homeownership counseling. While receiving services, an interest- bearing escrow account is established for the family that can be used for any purpose once the family has graduated from the program.

Currently, HUD operates one program for families served by the housing choice voucher program and a separate program for those families served by the public housing program. This legislation will combine those two separate FSS programs into one to streamline and reduce regulatory burdens.

The bill also broadens the scope of supportive services that may be offered to these families to include attainment of a GED, education in pursuit of a postsecondary degree or certification, and--I think this is important--training in financial literacy. Lastly, H.R. 4258 opens the FSS program to families that live in privately owned properties that are subsidized by project-based rental assistance.

Mr. Speaker, 4,793 families have successfully completed the program, with 1,557 graduates exiting rental assistance, within a year and another 606 graduates that eventually went on and were able to purchase a home. So more than 10 percent of the people who graduate from the program go on to buy a home.

I want to leave you with just a quick anecdote on written testimony that came to our committee from the Compass Working Capital Group. It is a story about Tanya. She graduated from the FSS program in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Now, when Tanya enrolled in the FSS program, she had been receiving housing assistance for about 4 years. She was working full-time and raising two children, but she had bigger dreams. One of those dreams was to one day own a house. At the time, Tanya believed that owning a home was, in her words, ``not for families like mine,'' a low-income single mother who came from a family where no one has ever owned a home.

So when Tanya graduated from the program, she got the assistance, got the counseling, and in the end, she was able to increase her annual income by $8,000, improve her credit score 140 points, pay down her debt, and save $3,000. She graduated from the program in 2015 and achieved her dream of becoming a homeowner, the first person in her family to do so.

She said: But what makes me happiest of all is seeing my children love their new home. Thanks to the Compass FSS program, now I, too, believe that families like mine can get ahead, live better, and accomplish our big dreams and goals such as buying a home.

This is a remarkable story of a program that actually works, that helps people get from public assistance into self-sufficiency and hopefully into homeownership.

I think it is this kind of artful review of policy that our committee has done on a bipartisan level that brings us to reforms that can look at the successes of a program and build upon those successes and make them work for more families.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues and friends across the aisle for working on this legislation and, again, bringing it out with such a bipartisan vote.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to briefly say in closing that we oftentimes find people who get stuck in a cycle of poverty. I think the goal of the program should be to help people get out of poverty and get to self- sufficiency.

If you look at this program, it takes an initiative by the person in FSS to say: I am going to raise my hand; I want to take advantage of these opportunities. It is about helping them get an education.

I have 8 kids, and I have a wife. For a single mom with a couple of kids who is trying to go to school or do job training or get a job, without some help on child care, that can't work. You can't make that happen. That is offered in this program.

Again, it offers additional education, financial literacy training, and counseling on home ownership. If you have some mental health issues, you can get training in that.

It is what is right about government, in the sense we don't want people to get stuck. We don't want people to get caught in a cycle of poverty, we want to help lift them up, and it is this kind of a program with these kinds of reforms that I think we have worked together on that accomplishes that goal: help people live the American Dream, which is get a job that allows them to eventually save enough money and buy a house. On the escrow part of this, when you get out of the program, you might have a small, little nest egg that you can use as a deposit for that home.

So I think this is a great program that does the right thing. If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, no matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on, this program is making the government work for people.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this combined rule that will enable the people's House to consider both the World Bank Accountability Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act.

Before I speak about why I support this rule, I do want to respond to the other gentleman from Colorado saying that this House is not doing the people's business. In fact, this House is dealing with year-end spending, and we are doing it right now. We are working on immigration reforms. To suggest otherwise is simply not true.

In fact, on year-end spending, this House passed all appropriations bills ahead of time, ahead of schedule, before the end of the fiscal year. Those bills were sent over to the Senate.

This House also dealt with the issues related to the Children's Health Insurance Program, dealt with community health centers and a whole range of other issues. Those pieces of legislation went over to the Senate.

So the issue is really with the Senate, it is not with this House.

Furthermore, this House has passed historic tax reform that has become law. It has passed over 16 Congressional Review Acts rolling back Obama-era regulations and rules that were holding back our economy. The result is millions of jobs were created and the best economy we have seen in a decade.

So it is just simply not true to suggest that this House is not doing the people's business. We are dealing with some important additional issues this week. We can do both: plan for the year-end spending debates with the Senate and also reauthorize the World Bank.

The World Bank's mission is to reduce poverty around the globe. However, during congressional oversight hearings, it has become clear that the World Bank is falling short of its antipoverty mission.

As early as 1992, outside reviews of the World Bank--and, later, its own reviews--concluded that a ``pressure to lend'' on staff, through the staff evaluation process, has created perverse incentives for some World Bank employees to focus on loan volume in order to receive a raise or a promotion rather than what really matters, which is poverty reduction outcomes.

In addition, there are numerous examples of where the very group of people that was supposed to be helped through World Bank assistance was actually harmed by a corrupt government or its cronies. From violent evictions to rape, to murder, the list of human rights violations goes on and on.

One of the most egregious examples of human rights violations was the Uganda crisis, where contractors were sexually abusing a dozen or more girls, and it took the World Bank years to stop it. Even more perplexing, the World Bank's country manager for the Uganda project was, disturbingly, promoted to become World Bank country director for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where allegations, not surprisingly, of sexual and gender-based violence have resurfaced in 2017.

For these reasons and more, I support the World Bank Accountability Act, which requires the World Bank to fix its problems or face a 15 to 30 percent reduction of the U.S. contribution to the World Bank's International Development Association fund, or, as it is commonly called, IDA.

More specifically, the bill authorizes $3.3 billion for IDA over the next 3 years and mandates that the World Bank must align its incentives for employees with the World Bank's goals of poverty reduction, ending the ``pressure to lend'' problem that is pervasive today. Throwing money at this problem is not the answer, but getting results and doing so without these kind of terrible, horrific scandals is critically important.

The legislation also requires the World Bank to fix failures identified in the Uganda sexual abuse crisis so that nothing like that ever happens again.

Additionally, the legislation requires the World Bank, through its various tools, to support property rights, due process of law, and economic freedom. The World Bank must also demonstrate that none of its resources have been used to fund terrorism, and must also improve its ability to detect and minimize corruption. If the World Bank does all of these commonsense reforms, then it will receive its full U.S. contribution for IDA. But if it fails to do this, then the World Bank doesn't deserve the full funding backed by U.S. taxpayers.

Mr. Speaker, I also am a strong supporter of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act. This much-needed legislation exempts community financial institutions, such as small banks and credit unions, from the onerous doubling of Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act reporting requirements if they make 500 or fewer mortgages and 500 or fewer home equity lines of credit each of the preceding 2 years.

The lenders I have spoken to say that, without relief, they will have to devote more resources to compliance costs, rather than deploying more capital into our economies to benefit working families and businesses.

Instead of having to collect superfluous redundant data, let's allow and liberate our community financial institutions to do what they want to do, and what they should be doing, in their core mission, and that is serving their customers and providing loans.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Emmer for his hard work on the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act. I thank Chairman Hensarling also for his leadership on both of these bills.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support both of these important pieces of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, every citizen in our Nation deserves a chance to achieve their American Dream. For thousands across the country, their American Dream consists of owning a home or starting their own business. Some laws have proven helpful in achieving this dream; others have created obstacles by codifying government overreach.

In 1975, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act was enacted. This important law exposed and helped eliminate discriminatory lending practices, particularly against minorities. In short, this law helped more Americans realize their dream of owning a house.

Over the years, however, the disclosure required by the law has expanded away from the original intent and has actually become an obstacle preventing small, medium, and local lenders from helping aspiring homeowners.

In 2015, the Dodd-Frank-created agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, demanded from lenders more than double the amount of data originally required under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. That double-the-data rule took effect on the first of this month.

Larger financial firms are able to adapt. In fact, most, if not all, continue to be in the home mortgage business; but for smaller financial firms, for the family-owned bank on Main Street, USA, the double-the- data rule means making fewer mortgages or none at all. This unintended result is something each of us has heard over and over again in our home districts.

Again, these are not the Wells Fargos, Bank of Americas, or J.P. Morgans. These are the small guys on Main Street, in small towns all across Minnesota and our country.

As a direct result of having fewer and fewer small, medium, and local lenders in the home mortgage business or offering the capital necessary for their neighbor's small business to get off the ground, the CFPB's rule has put the American Dream out of reach for many Americans.

Mr. Speaker, today we have an opportunity to rightsize government regulation to create more opportunity. We have the opportunity to encourage small and medium financial institutions in our local communities to keep their doors open, to make mortgages again, to make loans to would-be entrepreneurs, in short, to fund the dreams of their neighbors and friends. We have the opportunity to expand not the law but, rather and instead, the number of Americans who can own a home or start their own business.

I first introduced the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act when I

came to Congress in 2015. It is a bill that will keep the original intent of the 1975 HMDA law. Nothing will overwrite or exempt any financial institution, big or small, from reporting data related to race or gender. It is a bill that will put a stop to the loss of lenders we see in our home districts by providing desperately needed regulatory relief for Main Street banks and credit unions. I am proud to say it is a bill that has been perfected with input from both sides of the aisle and in both Chambers.

Our goal today shouldn't be to expand the law. Our goal today should be to expand the number of Americans who want to get one step closer to achieving their American Dream, whether it is owning a home or starting a business. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2954 will help us achieve this goal.

If my colleagues share the goal, then I ask you to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 2954 and pass the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act.