Floor Speeches

Before coming to Congress, I owned a small furniture store – the best and only furniture retailer in all of Westminster, SC. We only sold furniture; we did one thing, and we did it well. And before I ran Barrett's Furniture, I was a Captain in the US Army – a clear job title. In both organizations, I was taught to keep operations focused and not to expand our mission beyond its initial goals. So, what does this have to do with the legislation that we're discussing today? Unfortunately, this bill is a perfect example of Congress' bad habit of expanding its initial missions – a habit that brought us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Alternative Minimum Tax.