By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Rep. Scott Garrett (R, NJ-05), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, participated in a Financial Services Committee hearing entitled “Examining the SEC’s Agenda, Operations, and FY 2017 Budget Request” on Wednesday, Save Jerseyans.
Unsurprisingly, his chief concern was the misuse of tax dollars by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Here are Congressman Garrett’s opening remarks (as prepared for delivery):
Thank you Mr. Chairman and welcome Chair White
Chair White, the last time you appeared before our Committee I noted my concern over the large number of 3-2 votes the Commission has taken over the last several years, as well as the general perception that the SEC is becoming increasingly politicized
Since that time, little has happened to assuage any of those concerns that myself and others have raised
In the last six months, the SEC has prioritized and completed the highly partisan and politicized pay-ratio rule and is in the process of developing a “universal proxy ballot” rule – two priorities that may appease special interests, but do very little to make our capital markets more competitive
And while I am pleased that the SEC has at last finalized the crowdfunding provisions of the JOBS Act, I would note that this was also done on a partisan vote three years after a Congressional deadline
At the same, the SEC has utterly failed to develop a capital formation agenda, and it seems that the only time the SEC actually modernizes our securities laws to the benefit of growing businesses is when Congress tells them to do so
Tomorrow, the SEC will – for the 34th year in a row – hold its annual Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation
As in previous years, I expect this forum to produce a number of valuable ideas that would help small enterprises access capital and grow our economy
And as in previous years, I unfortunately expect the vast majority of these recommendations to be promptly ignored by the SEC
So Chair White I hope you can understand my resistance every time the SEC asks for an increase in taxpayer funding when the priorities of the Commission clearly need to be rearranged.”
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Yes, Let’s bring back the old 3 monkeys SEC so we can have another Bernie Madoff, maybe bigger! The best SEC Chair was Bill Casey, proactive , creative and gave taxpayers and the investing public their money’s worth. Too bad that Nixon perceived how talented he was, pulled him from the SEC job and … the rest is unfortunate