Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me tell my Republican friends this: All you have to do to know why we have got to go big for the survival of our Nation is look at the news recently. Have you seen the lines of cars? Some have been in line since 4 and 5 in the morning. And our community food banks are there.

Why do you think that they are there? They are hungry. We have got 17 million of our children going to bed hungry every single night because the American people don't have the money to go buy groceries. And you know, what? One of the fastest growing groups of those out there hungry, who are starving, who are dying under the viaducts, who are committing suicide in record numbers, are our veterans.

That is why we need to go bold, to go big. You talk about bipartisanship. That is what the American people want, bipartisanship to get money in their pockets.

And look, friends, I am chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I am a businessman. I graduated from the top school of finance in the world, the Wharton School of Finance. I can speak on this economy. The basic tool of growth in economy is getting money in the pockets of people who are spending. That is how you keep your community going. They are not going to sit on that money. They are going to buy, go into Kroger and Publix and get food.

Mr. Speaker, now is the time. We can't afford more delays. The time for us to be bold is now. This is the time to be decisive, to move confidently, and most importantly, to move Democrats and Republicans together to save our great Nation; not tomorrow. The time is now.

Madam Speaker, let me make everybody aware that on those just sun-bleached bones of history of many great nations are written those poetic words: Too late, they move too late to save their great nations.

Madam Speaker, let us not this day move too late to save our great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, what we are discussing tonight isn't about us. It is about the will of the American people.

They are brokenhearted. They are crying. And they are discouraged.

An overwhelming number of American people want this President out of office now. This is why we have to do it now. We have to heal the wound. The longer the President is over there, the more we are tearing the heart and soul out of the American people. Let us do it now.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary Georgian and a great American, Reverend James C. Birdsong, Jr.

Rev. Birdsong is a multi-talented preacher, gospel musician, nationally published author, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. Through his faith-based outreach, Rev. Birdsong has reached thousands of Georgians with his message of perseverance and trust in God's plan.

Rev. Birdsong was born into a family of talented artists in Richmond, California. From a young age, he knew that his mission in life was to share the word of God with others. Rev. Birdsong exhibited courage and resilience in overcoming a developmental disability to pursue his goals and further his education, culminating in a degree in Biblical Education from Beulah Heights University in Atlanta.

In recent years, Reverend Birdsong has kept busy, conducting numerous media interviews, accepting awards across the country, authoring a moving autobiography, and continuing to preach the gospel. He remains deeply involved in his community, founding the Birdsong Association of Broadcasting and Arts, to provide young voices with the platform and guidance to refine their talents and follow their dreams. He has further helped young Georgians to find their path in life through his continued youth advocacy efforts, leaving a positive impact on so many young people.

Madam Speaker, I congratulate Reverend Birdsong on his impactful career, and extend my sincerest wishes for his continued health and success, as he inspires people across the United States.

May God continue to bless Reverend James C. Birdsong, Jr.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of an extraordinary Georgian, Ms. Maggie Katie Brown-Kidd.

Ms. Kidd, the youngest of 12 children, was born on December 8, 1904, to William and Lucy Brown. While she spent much of her life living and working on her family's farm in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, she was most recently a resident of the city of Riverdale, Georgia, which I have the honor of representing here in Congress. She was the oldest living resident of the State of Georgia, the oldest African American person in the United States, and the tenth oldest person in the world.

Ms. Kidd was a lifetime member of the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Clayton County, in which the recreation room has been dedicated in her honor. She was deputized as an honorary sheriff and served as the Grand Marshall in the City of Riverdale's 2017 Christmas Parade. In March of this year, the Georgia House of Representatives held a ceremony in her honor to recognize and celebrate her 114 years of life.

Ms. Kidd witnessed a dramatic change in the world over the course of her long life, and through her selfless service to her family and local community, she has made Riverdale and the overall Georgia community a better place.

Ms. Kidd inspired many throughout her life by sharing her kindness, wisdom, and concern for her fellow citizens. We have lost an example of moral integrity and unending love. It is fitting and proper to reflect and commemorate Ms. Kidd's contribution to our community.

Madam Speaker, I ask that you join me in offering our sincerest condolences to Ms. Kidd's family and friends. She will be greatly missed.

May God continue to bless the family of Ms. Maggie Katie Brown-Kidd.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairwoman Waters for her support and encouragement to us to continue this.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make this opening statement because it is very important for us to realize the importance of this bill because, today, according to the latest data from the Veterans Administration, we are losing 20 of our military veterans every single day to suicide.

This is a clarion call from our veterans for help, and what we are doing today is one small step. But, as I will explain as I go on, we are doing much, much more because we need to bring this suicide rate to a stop.

So much of it is caused by disappointment, discouragement, and giving up. But, after today, with this vote, we will send a powerful message to this Nation and especially to our precious veterans that help is indeed on the way.

Now, I first of all want to thank my bipartisan friends Mr. Andy Barr, Mr. Zeldin, all of them, for this is truly a bipartisan effort, and I thank them for their support as we move forward with this.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to take my time and I want to go through this, and I want folks to really understand why this is so important. Mr. Barr touched on it.

Last year, when Congress passed S. 2155, which was called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, it included a set of bipartisan reforms to refinancing requirements for loans to protect our veterans from the predatory act of loan churning.

Mr. Speaker, this shows you the deviousness of it, that here you have these predatory lenders who are out here targeting our veterans and charging them over and over for the same payment on these refinancings.

How devious--how evil--can you be to do this to our veterans over and over again? And they do this to generate these fees and profits for these predatory lenders, while offering little to no benefit for our veteran homeowners--just using them.

So, in order to prevent this, S. 2155 codified new refinancing requirements, requiring lenders to demonstrate a material benefit to consumers when financing their mortgages and allowing for the initial loan to mature for at least 210 days before a borrower can refinance.

Now, these reforms were necessary to ensure that our veterans are adequately protected from these bad actors, these predatory lenders, so that our veterans can have access to the safe and affordable homeownership opportunities that they have earned and deserve.

Upon implementation of S. 2155, however, as Mr. Barr mentioned, a technical error in the language of S. 2155 caused a deviation in how this 210-day seasoning period was calculated, between what was written in the text and the requirement in place at Ginnie Mae.

For those who may not know, Ginnie Mae is the Government National Mortgage Association.

Now, this, combined with the lack of clarity around time lines to implement these new requirements, has caused 2,500 refinanced veteran loans that met Federal requirements at the time of closing and were guaranteed by the VA to be barred from this Government National Mortgage Association, Ginnie Mae's securitization, which resulted in making these veteran loans orphan loans.

They are there but no longer eligible for the secondary investment market opportunities that they deserve, despite meeting all Federal requirements, as well as backing from the VA, and it is clear that it was not the intent of Congress to orphan these veteran loans.

But, rather, our intent when we passed the Senate bill was to ensure that there were strong and enduring protections in place to prevent future loan churning.

Can you imagine somebody sending you a bill and you paying for the same thing over and over? How evil is that?

This bill that we have today will put a stop to that predatory type lending and the abuse that it has caused our veterans.

And this is also necessary, Mr. Speaker, because it preserves liquidity while maintaining strong refinancing requirements to keep these bad actors out and ensuring that our veterans, our men and women of the military who have served our country through their outstanding bravery, their courage, their great sacrifice for us, have access now to safe and affordable home ownership opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, without this needed legislative fix, VA lenders may need to sell or refinance these mortgages at a loss, causing damage to the VA home loan market and potentially hindering their ability to originate similar loans in the future or raising borrowing costs and rates for other qualified veterans who will be suffering the same abuse.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, I am especially proud to have worked with my colleagues on this: Mr. Lee Zeldin on the Financial Services Committee; Ms. Waters, our chairwoman; and Mr. Andy Barr, who sits on this committee. I also want to mention Mr. Mike Levin, who sits on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

We provided bipartisan common sense to fix this for our beloved veterans. Through this bipartisan work of my colleagues on these two committees, we have been able to move this bill through the House, ensuring that the dream of homeownership continues to be preserved for our Nation's precious veterans, to whom we owe the deepest debt of gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned in my remarks about this great tragedy, and I want to take this opportunity to let veterans who may be hearing this discussion this afternoon know that this Congress stands with and around them, and there are Members of Congress that have many bills and many different programs to get financial resources.

Dr. Bucshon, my Republican colleague, and I, for example, have a process going where we are addressing the shortage of psychiatrists. We are working with the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association to pay those doctors' student tuitions and give them scholarships so that they can come into the VA to work.

For the project I am working on with my good friend, Senator Johnny Isakson over in the Senate, we are trying to get more resources to open up more health clinics for our VA. And there are other things going.

I want people to know that down in my home State of Georgia, in my district, in the next month, on August 10, the doctors, nurses, and hospitals all over Atlanta, Georgia, are coming together, giving their time, along with the top administrators from the VA. They will be there in Jonesboro at Mundy's Mill High School.

We can cut down this suicide rate. It is a shame. It is a disgrace for this country. We are doing something about it in this Congress. Members on both sides of the aisle understand that this isn't a Democratic problem or a Republican problem. It is America's problem, and our veterans deserve our help.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary Georgian, public servant and a great American, Mayor Joe Jerkins.

Mayor Joe Jerkins represents the city of Austell right in the heart of my district. During his 30-year tenure, Mayor Jerkins has earned a reputation of being a statesman rather than a politician.

Mayor Jerkins has dedicated his work to ensuring Austell, Georgia was home to more than 6,500 of our diverse constituents. Mayor Jerkins successfully acquired the former Coats and Clark Threadmill to conserve the historical economic driver that created hundreds of jobs during the Great Depression.

Mayor Jerkins also contributed greatly to the economic development of Austell. Mayor Jerkins led negotiations with the Norfolk Southern Railroad which resulted in a $5 million dollar grant from the railroad. Mayor Jerkins led the City Council into placing the funds into interest bearing accounts. Interest from the accounts have been used for several different causes including the Garrett Middle School truancy program to keep students in school, Christmas bonuses for city employees, churches, Austell schools, cemetery upkeep and for families in need.

Mayor Jerkins continued his advocacy for the city of Austell through his role in the Atlanta Regional Commission where he represented Cobb County. Mayor Jerkins also was on the Board of Directors for the North Central Georgia Law Enforcement Academy. In these roles, Mayor Jerkins displayed his passion in serving all Georgians such as students, transit employees, and law enforcement.

Mayor Jerkins guided by a philanthropic compass and dedication to the State of Georgia, is a stellar example of great leadership.

Madam Speaker, I congratulate Mayor Joe Jerkins on his retirement, and extend my sincerest wishes for his continued health and happiness.

God bless and best wishes to Mayor Joe Jerkins and his family.

Mr. Chair, I thank the chairwoman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, this is singularly the most significant part of the Dodd- Frank legislation. It is the heart and the soul of it because it goes to protecting the American people against the abuses that have been predicated upon it.

This bill is singularly important. Let me tell Members some of the things it does.

Mr. Chair, right now, we have 44 million students, 44 million student loan borrowers, who are suffering, trying to figure out how to pay back these loans. There are predatory lenders that are out to abuse these students.

What does Ms. Waters' bill do? It establishes a dedicated student loan office within the CFPB to protect the Nation's 44 million student loan borrowers. That is what this bill does.

Also, it emphasizes the need for a transparent and accessible consumer complaint database. We get it all the time. Consumers presently make complaints at the way they are handling the CFPB now under the Trump administration. No attention is paid to that. No transparency is there. Ms. Waters' effort here will correct that.

Mr. Chair, this financial dynamic that we have suffered still looms large, and we need to restore the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to its rightful stature as the one premier agency that does the singular, most important thing today: protect the financial transactions of our American people.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, this is a terrible amendment, and I want to take my time to go through it so the American people can see how terrible this amendment is.

The gentleman is a fine gentleman and a good friend, and we work together. The amendment is what is terrible, not the gentleman. Let me tell you why.

This amendment would, number one, do away with the important findings on the failures of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Mick Mulvaney that every American should know about. I am going to take a few minutes so the American people will know about them.

The amendment, which also removes the direction from Congress to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to reverse its recent anticonsumer activities, was rejected by all Democrats in our committee markup.

This amendment is trying to hide from public view how Acting Director Mulvaney stopped payments from the Civil Penalty Fund to consumers who were harmed, tried to reduce the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding and staffing, politicized the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by making unusual efforts to fill the independent agency with political appointees, and reduced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's enforcement actions by 75 percent compared to the average annual number of enforcement actions from the previous 3 years.

I mean, that is why it is terrible. That is why it is dangerous. Of particular concern, this amendment strikes a direction to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to resume exams for compliance with the Military Lending Act, for our veterans, to ensure that they are not ripped off by unscrupulous lenders. That practice is heavy.

We just passed a bill in committee to deal with mortgages that were churning, where predatory lenders were going in and churning, churning over and over again, making our veterans pay the same bill over and over again. That is what your amendment would take protections from.

In January of this year, the Consumer Office of Servicemember Affairs, our veterans, reported that servicemember complaints and requests for assistance have continued to increase over time. In fact, from 2016 to 2017, there was a 47 percent increase in complaints received from servicemembers.

Nevertheless, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under its current director, Ms. Kathy Kraninger, is ignoring its own legal counsel and refuses to supervise banks for MLA compliance.

During our March 7 hearing on the Bureau, veteran Jennifer Davis from the National Military Family Association stated: ``We have become alarmed by the CFPB's decision to no longer supervise lenders for compliance with the MLA. Current leadership has expressed the opinion that the agency does not explicitly have the authority to do supervisory examinations to ensure MLA compliance. We disagree.'

As Ms. Davis noted, Dodd-Frank grants the Bureau executive and administrative authority in implementation of consumer financial laws through rules, orders, guidance, interpretations, statements of policy, examinations, and enforcement actions. She has been joined by 38 military and veteran service organizations, a bipartisan coalition of 33 State attorneys general, as well as retired Army Colonel Paul Cantwell and the former head of the Office of Servicemember Affairs, in disagreeing with the Bureau's decision.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

The first thing I want to say is thank you to Mr. Foster and thank you to Mr. Hill for providing sterling, bipartisan leadership on this, Madam Speaker, what I feel is one of the most pressing needs facing our Nation today, and that is to equip our young people with the financial education, the financial acumen of navigating what is becoming even a greater, more complex financial system.

Madam Speaker, let me just bring this glaring statistic to drive home this point to you, the Congress, and the American people.

According to the Council for Economic Education, just 17 States out of the 50 States of our great Nation require students to take even one course in personal finance. Just 22 States require high school students to take a course in just basic economics, and then that course is interloped into others and not even in and of itself.

Yet the financial decisions that our young people are asked to make are immense, carrying lifelong consequences to consider in the decision, first of all, of whether to go to college or not, how to go to college, how to pay for it, and how to pay for the increasing costly debt for this college education.

Consider the challenges that can come from balancing a starting or beginning wage against the student loan debt or saving for retirement. Or consider many of the basic kitchen table choices that families must make each and every day to put food on the table, to buy or not to buy an automobile, just the simple electricity bill. They would have to make definite choices.

Consider the advantages that are afforded to consumers who do have access to credit, how important that is. How do you acquire that access, and how do you maintain that access for credit?

We are, indeed, a financial consumer economy, but we are basically a credit-based economy, and our young people must gravitate and be able to grapple with this in a responsible way.

In our increasingly complex financial marketplace, the value of financial education has never been higher. Personal education is badly needed.

To reduce debt, we would look at the debt that so many of our young people start out with year after year even finishing college. How do you manage that? How do you make those choices?

Financial literacy is the key to financial security not just of the individual, because if we don't have financial security for the people of our Nation, we don't have financial security for the future of this great Nation. That is why this is one of the most important issues that this Congress faces today.

I am so proud to join with my Republican friend and my Democratic friend in showing the bipartisan way that we must go to solve this problem and make sure that this generation and every generation coming after them have the best financial education.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important and timely resolution because, in recent years, the lack of sunlight and transparency in financial transactions and corporate formation has brought us to the forefront of the very dangerous role that dark money plays in our financial system.

Money laundering; loopholes in markets like real estate, the arts, and antiquities can be taken advantage of by criminals who facilitate their nefarious deeds. And, Mr. Speaker, according to the Financial Action Task Force, real estate alone accounted for one-third of all the criminal assets confiscated worldwide between 2011 and 2013, in that 3- year period.

Even more concerning, Mr. Speaker, is this: some of these transactions are conducted by anonymous shell companies who are exploiting loopholes in our financial system, creating a lack of transparency for who really is the beneficial owner of the assets.

This is very important, Mr. Speaker.

This critical resolution offered by my colleague and chairwoman, Ms. Maxine Waters, recognizes how important this issue is not only to the stability of our financial system but to the national security of our great Nation.

It urges that much more be done with these loopholes and lets us shine a bright light into the darkest corners of our financial system.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, I rise to encourage my colleagues to support this resolution that will protect our financial system from abuse and corruption. I am hopeful that it will be unanimous, with all of our colleagues supporting this important resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Children's Healthcare of Atlanta for their extraordinary work in fighting sickle cell anemia disease, and providing comprehensive medical care for thousands of our children in Georgia.

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is the home of this Nation's largest pediatric sickle cell disease program with more than 1,800 children and teens. Georgia is home to over 8,000 people who have sickle cell disease, one of the Nation's most impacted populations.

On this Thursday, February 7, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta will be hosting a briefing at 1 p.m. right here in the Capitol in room HVC- 201 to discuss innovations in sickle cell disease treatment.

Madam Speaker, more than 100,000 Americans have and suffer from sickle cell disease. It is a painful, genetic blood disorder that prevents the children from getting air. It is debilitating.

Madam Speaker, I ask that we stand proudly and support the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Mr. Speaker, this is a great farm bill. There is so much in it, so many great things. But in this farm bill is perhaps the absolute best example of bipartisanship at its best, to have Democrats and Republicans working together to give $80 million to African American, 1890s land grant colleges and universities.

I just want to say a big thank you. I thank our Ranking Member Peterson. And I thank Mike Conaway, who started with me on this journey. God bless you, Mike. Thank you so much for your help.

I thank our friends over on the Senate side. I thank Senator David Perdue, who took the reins over there and helped put the money back in. I also thank Senator Roberts, the chairman of the Senate committee.

I thank my staffer, Ashley Smith, my legislative director who worked night and day with me on this bill.

And I thank God Almighty. Mr. Speaker, God had His hand in this, to pull Democrats and Republicans together, to give $80 million to badly needed African American land grant colleges and universities. Only God could pull this together, and we thank God for this blessing and for touching the hearts and the souls and the spirits of all of my colleagues who will vote for this historic bill.

I thank, also, the staff of the Senate Agriculture Committee, as well as the House Agriculture Committee. Thank you all for the work that you all did in this bill. I thank you for all the people in America who are grateful for this, but especially the African American community thanks you for opening up these opportunities for their light to shine as well.

Mr. Speaker, it brings me great joy and honor to commemorate the impact of The Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of The Civil Rights Act. We owe a huge part of this monumental legislation to the Civil Rights workers, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Congress. Their dedication to ensure equality will never be in vain or forgotten.

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today to honor the life of an extraordinary Georgian and a great American, Mrs. Emma Roberta Davie Wilson who passed away at the age of 90. She was a loving mother, daughter, sister, and friend. Mrs. Wilson was a wonderful teacher who had a passion for educating youth.

Having spent her entire life as a Georgia resident, Mrs. Wilson attended Main High School in Rome, Georgia. After receiving her high school diploma, she attended Paine University in Augusta, Georgia, where she received her degree in early childhood education. Mrs. Wilson dedicated 25 years of her life to the Atlanta Public School System at Thomas Heath Slater Elementary School. Her tenure within this institution of public learning personifies what it means to be a public servant.

In 1948, she married the late Eddie Daniel Wilson. Together, Mr. Speaker, they had five beautiful children, and a host of grandchildren. Mrs. Wilson was also a most devoted Christian. She was a loving member at Macedonia Baptist Church in Joyland Community in Atlanta, Georgia. And she was a Sunday School teacher who helped lead many young children to Christ at an early age.

I celebrate Mrs. Wilson for her admirable service to the youth of our nation, the city of Atlanta, and the State of Georgia. My colleagues and I extend our deepest sympathies to her surviving friends and family members, which include five children, four grandchildren, three great- grandchildren, and a host of nieces and nephews. Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend my condolences to Mrs. Wilson's family and friends during this time of sorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the heavy toll that Alzheimer's exacts on those who are unfortunate enough to suffer from the disease, the impacts to their family and loved ones, and to the American people. This devastating disease greatly erodes the sufferers' standard of living, strains their finances, and can place an enormous burden on those who care for them. However, despite these troubling realities, it is my hope that through raising awareness and increasing research funding we can lower the number of Americans that suffer with this disease and prevent its dire consequences.

The most common form of Dementia in America is Alzheimer's. There are about 5.7 million Americans living with the disease and 110,000 in Georgia alone, age 65 and older. Far from being a disease limited to the elderly though, approximately 200,000 Americans younger than age 65 are living with younger onset Alzheimer's (also known as early-onset). But at any age, an Alzheimer's diagnosis is extremely tragic.

As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, Alzheimer's can also cause severe financial burdens, not only for the patient but for their families and caregivers as well. Currently, 16.1 million Americans are providing unpaid care for people with Alzheimer's or another dementia. These caregivers provided approximately 18.4 billion hours of care last year valued at more than $232 billion. We here in Congress must do more to support those patients and caregivers.

Mr. Speaker, African American elders are two to three times more likely to have Alzheimer's disease compared with whites and research shows that older Hispanics are about one-and-a-half times as likely as older whites to develop Alzheimer's and other dementias. So it is imperative that we educate these communities on warning signs of the disease, so that they will have a better understanding of the impact of a diagnosis, and are better positioned to seek the opinion of medical experts and to plan and prepare for the future.

Despite the potential for tragic outcomes, there is reason for optimism. We can and should continue to fund Alzheimer's research, and to support patients and caregivers as they seek treatment for this condition. Even though the cause of Alzheimer's is still unclear, the damaging effects it has on people are. So please Mr. Speaker, I ask you and the rest of our colleagues to join me while we raise awareness of this terrible illness, and seek to support those around the country who are touched by it.