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Financial Services

As one of the senior members on the House Financial Services Committee, and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, I have played a leading role in overseeing our financial markets.  One of my highest priorities in Congress has been to ensure that your hard-earned tax dollars are not being misspent.  I voted against the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), also commonly referred to as the "Wall Street Bailout," and I will continue working to identify and eliminate wasteful spending.

In response to the 2008 Financial Crisis, Congress rushed through one of the most overreaching pieces of legislation in our nation’s history – the Dodd-Frank Act.  Instead of stopping to ask what the root cause of the crisis was, Dodd-Frank made hasty assumptions and simply heaped a pile of burdensome regulations on our financial markets. This new bureaucracy will cost taxpayers billions of dollars just to implement, and threaten to take trillions of dollars out of the economy once implemented.  In my role as the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman, I have led efforts to identify just how much this law is costing to implement, and whether proper cost-benefit analysis of the required regulations is being completed.  Shockingly, many of these questions were not asked by the authors of this new law.

One of the most egregious examples of wasteful taxpayer spending has been the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Since the government took over these two companies in 2008, taxpayers have continually bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of approximately $170 billion.  To make matters worse, investigations led by my Subcommittee have discovered that taxpayers are actually footing the legal bills for the executives charged with breaking laws that contributed to the downfall of the entities.  My Subcommittee has also discovered that while these companies continue to pay multi-million dollar salaries to some of their executives, they have been increasing their payrolls since 2009.  My investigation also found that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have spent $41.4 million for “travel and entertainment,” $5.1 million for “meals and social activity,” and $20.6 million for “corporate contributions.”

Without question, this is unacceptable. To prevent this waste of your tax dollars, I have supported legislation to change Fannie and Freddie’s pay structure and prohibit further bonuses. H.R. 1221, the Equity in Government Compensation Act, would ensure that these executives and employees receive compensation in line with pay practices at federal financial regulatory agencies.

I also believe that one of the keys to ending the taxpayer bailout of these entities is to end the government’s role in the housing sector all together.  Today Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchase over nine of out every ten new mortgages – over 90 percent – nearly double the number from just a few years ago.  I agree with many of my colleagues and constituents that a strong, sustainable housing market is the key to any economic recovery.  The foundation to a long-term solution to the housing market is to get the government out of it, and I am carefully considering proposals by my colleagues on how best to do that.

Latest News

Filtered by Financial Services, Small Business, U.S. Debt

  • Neugebauer Calls for SOS: Stop Outrageous Spending

    I'm concerned that we're missing a fundamental truth: America does not have a tax problem. We have a spending problem. The U.S. currently holds over $16 trillion in debt and 2012 marks the fifth consecutive year the country has run deficits greate

    Read more
  • Neugebauer Calls for SOS: Stop Outrageous Spending

    I'm concerned that we're missing a fundamental truth: America does not have a tax problem. We have a spending problem. The U.S. currently holds over $16 trillion in debt and 2012 marks the fifth consecutive year the country has run deficits greate

    Read more
  • Neugebauer Statement on STEM Jobs Act

    Taxpayers have already spent nearly $200 billion to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat. The guarantee fees should be raised so that they can better cover the risk associated with Fannie and Freddie's portfolios. I strongly disagree with using increased g

    Read more
  • Neugebauer Statement on STEM Jobs Act

    Taxpayers have already spent nearly $200 billion to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat. The guarantee fees should be raised so that they can better cover the risk associated with Fannie and Freddie's portfolios. I strongly disagree with using increased g

    Read more
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