JUNE 2017 Newsletter Volume 4, Issue 5

The Republican Party of Sierra County

Guest Columns: Credit Reforms Causing Concern

U.S. Congressman Steve Pearce

Albuquerque Journal

Credit is one of the most powerful devices of the financial system designed over time by modern societies. It gives people the

freedom to spend money now – whether to cover a medical expense, an emergency repair, buy a home or send their child to school –

and pay it off later.

While it accelerated the speed of innovation around the world, it also changed people’s spending habits, however, not always for the best. In some countries, credit is simply not available to those who need it most: the people at the bottom of the income ladder. In the United States, we’ve developed a highly sophisticated system with opportunity available to all.

While some people abuse this power and act carelessly in repaying their loans – resulting in bad credit scores and higher interest rates that they have to pay – credit is still available to almost everyone in this country. That is, until the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created in the Dodd-Frank legislation passed when Democrats Nancy Pelosi controlled the House of Representatives, Harry Reid controlled the Senate and President Obama was firmly installed in his first term.

This bureau was tasked with protecting consumers – a laudable goal. Very quickly though, the bureau began to show it had no idea how or why many elements of the credit markets were established. As it began to regulate those elements out of existence, credit to the poor began to dry up. People in New Mexico soon began to see their opportunities disappear because their sources of credit were diminishing before their eyes.

Half of the homes in the 2nd Congressional District of New Mexico are manufactured housing. The bureau took several actions that resulted in all but one or two banks no longer lending for those. It took a mother in Las Cruces several years to refinance her family’s mobile home simply because no one in town was offering the specific line of credit she needed under her financial circumstances. These harmful regulations even made their way over to traditional housing loans. With a tool called Qualified Mortgage, the bureau dried up many of these loans or made the loans hard and complex to apply for. The slow economy in New Mexico grew slower as home buying sagged under new, crippling regulations.

What was once a simple mortgage process, both for the banker and the home buyer, now involved ample pages of paperwork, time constraints and unnecessary, duplicative fees.

In New Mexico, it is not uncommon for a couple to buy several mobile homes as they live their lives. When they retire, they sell these one at a time, carrying the note. The bureau instituted punitive rules for this form of credit that some of the people use who cannot get loans at a bank or credit union. This left retirees with less income to supplement their Social Security, and people with bad credit missed out on one of the last options they have to own a home instead of renting.

Rules and procedures replaced bank safety and soundness exams in New Mexico with “extreme compliance” exams. Banks faced crippling fines on small loans they make for local, small businesses, eventually forcing most to simply stop writing loans – I even heard from one bank that was concerned that it could face a $50,000 penalty for a missed comma. While banks struggled to keep up with these regulations, the ultimate pressure was felt by small businesses that wanted to expand and hire more workers but could not

get the loans to do so.

This resulted in fewer jobs for New Mexicans and less support for our local economies. Along the way, the bureau established guidelines that resulted in banks in Deming being regulated the same way as banks in New York City. I have personally sat down multiple times over the last six years with the head of the CFPB and the chairman of the Federal Reserve to express the damage the bureau’s actions have caused to New Mexico. They just don’t seem to care about the effect on the poor, rural areas and the weight of their regulations. For these reasons, I’ve joined Chairman (Rep. Jeb) Hensarling, R-Texas, of the House Financial Services Committee to pass the CHOICE Act, repealing many of the ways that the bureau flagrantly ruins the hopes and dreams of those who financially struggle.

It is my aim to see that even the most economically fragile in New Mexico have the opportunity and resources to earn their way to success.

Rep. Steve Pearce is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and chairman of the new Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

My View 2

From the Chair 3

The Republican Party of Sierra County Newsletter

Page 2

MY VIEW ON THE BALL PARK SHOOTING—The atmosphere in the country today is volatile and is stoked (if not caused) by the Democratic refusal to accept the results of the election last year. The constant railing about the Trump/Russia “collusion”, the Kathy Griffin parody of Trump’s severed head, the remake of “Julius Caesar” with the assassination scene using a Trump look-alike all create an atmosphere where unhinged individuals will think they will be treated as heroes if they carry out some sort of attack on Republicans. The shooter in this instance asked beforehand if those practicing were Democrat or Republican. His intention was to attack Republicans. I turned on MSNBC (please, no intervention— it was only for a few minutes to see how they reported the incident) at 7:30 Wednesday morning and they were already reporting from a gun-control angle that the weapon was a rifle with a scope. The Democrat Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, rushed to the hot bed of his support, the suburbs of D.C., to insist that 93 million a day are killed by gun violence (At best you’ve got 2 more days before you too are shot) Democrats have whipped their constituents into a frenzy since the election. Calls for impeachment without any evidence of any “high crime or misdemeanor”. Calls for resistance. Refusal to admit that they had a tainted candidate with a huge amount of baggage gathered during her long controversial career. ON MAXINE WATTERS—Does anybody give Maxine Watters any credibility? The scary thing to me is that we have a majority of electorate in at least one congressional district who voted for her! As a conservative I was crushed by the election of Barack I and devastated when he was reannointed. I expressed my disappointment as did most of you I expect. BUT, it never occurred to me to orchestrate a campaign to discredit him or to try to impeach him. Let me get this straight. Comey felt compelled to keep a record of his meetings with Trump, but did not keep records of his meetings with Loretta Lynch, who had thrown him under the bus in the Hillary Clinton matter [pronounced in-ves-ti-ges-shuh n]. He thinks Trump is a liar, but he believes Lynch just bumped into Slick Willy on the tarmac and discussed grandchildren?

ON THE COMEY FIRING—FYI, FBI stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation … not Federal Bureau of Matters ... not Federal Bureau of Prosecutions. Deciding whether the information produced by the FBI warrants a prosecution is the purview of the U.S. attorney - not the Director. The crest of the FBI uses the same initials on a banner below the shield to pronounce three attributes - Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity. In my opinion former director Comey fell short on each of those characteristics. First, fidelity -a synonym for trustworthiness - based on his leaking information to the NY Times through a friend. Bravery - based on his inability to stand up to Loretta Lynch and just say no to taking the lead in refusing to prosecute Hillary. Integrity for keeping notes to use to undermine President Trump. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. will be turning over in his grave.

ON CAREER POLITICIANS VS CAREER BUREAUCRATS—How does a government work when it is forced to keep the supporters of its predecessors? How good would the Cubs be if all their players secretly supported the St. Louis Cardinals? What if Tonto was selling out the Lone Ranger to his Indian buddies.

I remember sitting in a meeting with Congressman Pearce shortly after he was reelected to the seat he previously held and hearing him decry the fact that he inherited the unelected bureaucracy from Harry Teague, staff who did not agree with Pearce’s conservative views. But the staffers were protected by the Civil Service system. I struggle with this scenario; the possibility of sabotage is rife.

You see that very scenario playing out in D.C. Thousands of employees in the Executive Branch are in a position to “slow roll” or leak information or otherwise damage the new conservative government. They perceive that their own job security is better served by “vote-buying” liberals and they are in a position to help discredit anybody who tries to reduce the size of government.

I think this is the swamp President Trump needs to figure out how to drain. We have career politicians rather than citizen legislators - but more importantly, we have career bureaucrats that run the day-to-day government more interested in their own careers than the well being of the rest of our citizens.

OFFICERS

Sheridan Fuss - Chair

Johanna Tighe - 1st Vice Chair

Skip Bennett - 2nd Vice Chair

Crystal Diamond - Secretary

Sandra Cliborne - Treasurer

Headquarters Phone: 575-740-1318

The Republican Party of Sierra County is organized to sup-

port local, state and national republican candidates in or-

der to further the republican ideals of individual self-

sufficiency, conservative thinking and patriotism. New

members are always welcome. Meetings are on the third

Monday of each month at the Elephant Butte Inn unless

otherwise posted.

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The Republican Party of Sierra County Newsletter

Upcoming Events TONIGHT - June 19 - RPOSC Monthly meeting, Elephant

Butte Inn, 6:00 p.m. Guest speaker, Nathan Lafont, Board

Member of the Spaceport America Committee.

From RPOSC Chairman, Sheridan Fuss

Hi Sierra Republicans!

As we head into this busy summer we want to be certain to remember the functions of our local Party. Several hearty volunteers went to Winston to show our presence and support our State Rep. Rebecca Dow, our Sheriff Glenn Hamil-ton, our County Clerk Shelly Trujillo, our Probate Judge Pam Smith and our local Precinct Chairs, Gloria Petersen and Bill Weddle. Thanks to Sharon Luna for all her help in securing the table space.

There are several volunteers needed in the coming months for assembly and manning the booth.

Next year is a pivotal year in our State, as the survival of Republicans depends on win-ning the House, Senate and/or the Governorship so that redistricting will not be left total-ly to the Democrats. An outpouring of support from all of us is extremely important!

Please do your best to be at our monthly meetings and invite friends~ ! This month should be very informative and next month ( July 17) as we have the Gila Supervisor, Adam Mendoza ( a local product), from Silver City, and Mike Hutchins, District Ranger with the National Forest Service as our presenters.

Our Party is under extreme attack as the "Swamp" gets emptied---pray for our Nation, State and County and our Leaders from the President down!!

Our web site is under construction currently. Remember to check in with www/SierraCountyRepublicans.com!

Sheridan

June 19, 2017

1296 DAYS DAYS DAYS

until

ELECTION DAY 2020