By Congressman Bruce Poliquin
(R-Maine)
Last week, the House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations subcommittee held a hearing regarding Operation Choke Point with Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman, Martin Gruenberg.
According to a Fox News article, “under Operation Choke Point, banks and other financial institutions were reportedly pressured to cut off accounts for targeted businesses that included gun stores, casinos, tobacco distributors, short-term lenders and other businesses.” Once again, President Obama is overreaching and abusing his executive powers by using his federal agencies to intimidate those who do not agree politically with him. This isn’t fair and it isn’t right.
During the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing, I asked Chairman Gruenberg what gives him, anyone that works for him or his agency the right to try to shut down businesses that are operating, legally, in this country. The Chairman simply responded, “We don’t have that right or authority.”
Most importantly, the folks responsible for intimidating local banks to put the squeeze on our hard-working small businesses are still employed by the FDIC.
I believe that programs like these are stifling job creation, hurting our economy and our way of life. Our hard-working small businesses should not be intimidated and bullied by President Obama’s administration because they have different political views.
Washington should be working to restore trust with small businesses to give job creators the confidence they need to create more jobs, not target them because of political differences.
Please watch and share with your friends the video from my questioning, located on my website at Poliquin.House.Gov, with FDIC Chairman Gruenberg. I will continue to fight and ask the hard questions to make sure our Mainers are not being unnecessarily targeted by the Obama Administration because of different political views.
