If I live my life thinking that something might not pass the Senate, I would never even get up and bother to go to work.
— Jeb Hensarling
Having just one insurance provider for all flood risk in the entire country makes no sense.
The easiest thing that is done, unfortunately, in Washington is to spend money today and send the bill to our children and grandchildren.
Even though I'm a chairman, I don't always get my way.
You cannot borrow and spend your way into prosperity. It does not work.
Nothing says 'economic growth' like fundamental tax reform.
The fate of your paycheck, the fate of your small business should not rest on what side of the bed a Washington bureaucrat wakes up on.
I want to protect consumers from their government.
From the takeover of Detroit and the failed stimulus packages to the enactment of Obamacare, the president and congressional Democrats chose to use Americas economic crisis as an excuse to expand government rather than as an opportunity to responsibly shrink it.
Millions of Americans are struggling to pay their mortgages. They have a right to know whether members of Congress receive sweetheart deals in order to pay for theirs.
I do not want America to default on its debt.
In every jurisdictional area that I can get my fingers on, I want to move us away from the Washington insider economy.
Listen, I wish economic growth only went in one direction. It doesn't. There are economic downturns. They're painful, they're harmful, and they hurt families.
The deficit is the symptom, but spending is the disease.
Dodd-Frank represents the greatest regulatory burden on our economy, more so than all the other Obama-era regulations combined.
We cannot watch another family lose everything - risking their lives and the lives of the first responders sent to rescue them - because the flood insurance program's seal of government approval fooled them into thinking they were safe. That's more than wrong: it's immoral.
I'm always ready to negotiate in good faith with others.
There are several different ways we can get at unclogging the arteries of lending in America and helping working people achieve financial independence. Part of that is going to be through executive action. Part of that is going to be through reconciliation.
We've all heard about Wall Street greed. I think people are now starting to be a little bit more sensitized to Washington greed - the greed for power and control over our lives and our economy.
In many respects, you can argue Dodd-Frank isn't even law. It's a license for unaccountable, un-elected officials to make law.
The thought of my children growing up in an America with less freedom, less opportunity, and a lower standard of living is a long-term pain I cannot and will not bear.
Every time we've had a pro-growth fundamental tax reform, be it under President Reagan, President Kennedy - you can even go all the way back to President Coolidge - we have seen paychecks increase, economic growth be ignited, and, actually, more revenues come into the government.
What I'd like to do is be able to work with Democrats to reform current entitlement programs for future generations, grandfathering all the grandparents.
I'm one of the top 2 or 3 or 4 most conservative members in the House of Representatives when it comes to economics.
Nobody wants to shut down the government.
I'm not pro-business. I'm pro-free enterprise.
You've got Washington picking winners and losers. And so, all of a sudden, decisions are being made on what helps politicians, not what helps the economy. Some will call it socialism. Some will call it a command and control economy. Whatever it is, it's antithetical to the American experience.
Competition is good for consumers. It provides more choices at better prices.
The destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey is unlike anything my home state has ever experienced. As long as I live, I'll never forget those images of elderly women waiting in waist-deep water to be rescued.
After Dodd-Frank, the big banks were bigger. The small banks are fewer.
As a matter of principle, Republicans do not believe in federal price controls.
I don't know how we will ever have the moral authority to deal with social welfare if we can't deal with corporate welfare.
I've been dedicated to the proposition that there's been no greater wealth-creation system in the history of mankind than the American free-enterprise system.
The bottom line is the best consumer protections are competitive, innovative markets that are transparent. Now, they need to be vigorously policed for force and fraud, but the agencies that do that need to be accountable.
Frankly, I do like the idea that we centralize consumer protection for financial products into one agency.
Now, if most Americans want to go out and buy a car, they don't say, you know, 'I think I'll call the chairman of the board of Ford Motor Company and see what kind of deal we can make here.'
In many respects, I guess I would say I was into Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.
You talk to any of the job creators, and they'll tell you one of the things that concerns them the most is the debt. And so high levels of indebtedness are going to lead to high levels of taxation, which lead to high level of unemployment.
Listen, if the people in my district wanted to live in France, they'd move to France.
If you were approaching the TARP investments from a pure investment standpoint, then there's no doubt in my mind the taxpayer lost, and probably lost big.