Athens Daily Review - Hensarling Addresses Residents’ Concerns

U.S. Congressman Jeb Hensarling was in Athens Tuesday for a town hall meeting to update the citizens of Henderson County on his continued efforts to hold Washington accountable to the American people.

Held at the Henderson County Senior Citizens Center, more than 50 people attended with a plethora of questions for the congressman.

After an opening statement in which he recognized the many veterans in attendance, Hensarling addressed several concerns by area residents.

“Washington politicians look at our struggling economy and assume the magic elixir to our nation’s woes is more regulation and more regulators with the power to decide what is best for Americans. East Texans look at the state of our economy and realize Washington’s ‘fix’ is what got us into this mess in the first place,” he said.

As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Hensarling said, “my number one goal has been more jobs and a healthier economy for all. That means we’ve got to root out the job-choking red tape that hurts our economy, stifles competition, and erodes free enterprise. It means proposing solutions that alleviate the heavy burdens these regulations impose, and protecting American consumers by holding Washington accountable.”

Several questions from audience members surrounded the nation’s economy while others expressed concern over government agencies such as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education and Bureau of Labor Management.

“One of those Washington regulators is the CFPB – perhaps the most powerful and least accountable government agency in the history of the republic. The CFPB and its unelected director were given unbridled, discretionary power over everyday financial products like credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages,” Hensarling said. “Not only does this agency have the power to make these products less available and more expensive, it has the power to make them completely unavailable to East Texas consumers. At the same time, the CFPB is collecting massive amounts of Americans’ personal financial data – data on 53 million mortgages, 991 million credit cards, and 8.6 million credit reports to date – all stored in a database the CFPB has acknowledged is not secure.”

He continued, “All the while, the CFPB is also spending $140 million dollars of hard-earned taxpayer money to renovate an office building it doesn’t even own. If the CFPB isn’t the very definition of Washington waste and abuse, I don’t know what it is. That is why the House passed H.R. 3193, the Consumer Financial Freedom and Washington Accountability Act – a package of common-sense reforms designed to make the CFPB more accountable and transparent to the American people.”

After concerns were raised about the current welfare system, Hensarling said he wants to see a government that empowers people instead of holding them back.

“If you truly care about somebody and truly love your fellow man, make them independent and empower them. Let them experience the dignity of work,” Hensarling said.

He told a story of a lady he met a number of years ago who was working the loading dock of a major retailer in Dallas.

“She was a refugee from Hurricane Katrina. I talked to this lady for a while and discovered at some point that all the extra special extended welfare benefits ended up hurting her. She was a single mother of two who lived in the ninth ward. Her whole life she had only known welfare. She had been told she was a victim, that life was unfair and she could not get ahead.”

Displaced by the hurricane, she moved her family to Dallas where she was connected with a local church that changed her life and future generations of her family.

“They helped her get her foot in the door at this retailer. She told me something I will never forget. She said, ‘You know what? Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to me. I did not know I was capable of this. Now my two boys know that I pay the bills. My two boys know I put food on the table.’”

Hensarling said she was beaming with pride because she discovered she was a “child of God that had talents. As an American citizen she had inalienable right to pursue her happiness. Because of free enterprise she discovered empowerment.”

Hensarling said compassion has to be measured by the number of lives that are changed, not the number of food stamps or welfare checks issued.

One of the audience members stood up and thanked Hensarling and his office for helping empower him in a battle with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. With the help, the county resident was able to get relief funds he was previously denied by FEMA.

In closing, Hensarling said, “Congress should stand up for free enterprise and the Main Street economy. We should be working to make businesses more competitive by repealing Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and reducing the tsunami of red tape unleashed by other Obama regulatory agencies. We should work for fundamental tax reform that creates a fairer, flatter, simpler tax code that makes Henderson County businesses more competitive. This is what the people of East Texas want and deserve, and this is what I will continue fighting for.”