Frank Guinta opposed to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau!

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Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) made it clear he would have preferred the agency not exist. He asked Cordray why the agency was not adhering to Obama's freeze on government hiring.

Cordray said the agency was new and needed to hire to get working. Cordray noted that if the agency had adhered to the freeze, it would still have zero employees instead of the approximately 757 it now has.

"I wouldn't object to you being at zero," Guinta said.

Source: "Consumer chief Richard Cordray promises not to abuse his power" By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2012.


Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, waits for the start of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing. (Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg / January 24, 2012)

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"Frank's Book Club: Guinta reads to the financial sector"
NH Union Leader, Editorial, March 4, 2016

Who knew Frank Guinta was a book lover?

During his spare time in Washington, Guinta likes to get together with some of his favorite banking lobbyists and share his thoughts on literature.

Bloomberg Politics reports that Guinta last month received a boost from House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling, who hosts a monthly “Book Club” where donors can hear from committee Republicans. Guinta led the February talk on Arthur C. Brooks’ “The Conservative Heart.” For $2,000, lobbyists get lunch, a book and Hensarling’s good will. Skipping more than one of the monthly fundraisers reportedly knocks you into the doghouse.

Such tactics are neither new nor atypical. The book club goes back more than a decade, and committee chairs often use their clout to help less powerful members raise money. Neither Guinta nor Hensarling is doing anything illegal or unusual.

Financial industry lobbyists don’t care what Frank Guinta has to say about a book. They’re showing up to protect their access in the future.

Campaign finance reformers would ban such unsavory arrangements. That’s both unconstitutional and unnecessary. Shrinking government, and lessening the control that members of Congress have on our lives is the surest way to reduce money in politics.

In the short term, when Guinta files his next campaign finance report, we’ll get to see which lobbyists share his love of reading.

Reader's comment:

SPIKE said March 4, 2016:

As always, the problem is not that industry can "petition the government for redress of grievances," nor that the banking industry has more "greed" than it has always had, but that the federal government has amassed so many unconstitutional powers whose only point is sale to private interests--starting with a national central bank, price controls on the price of money itself, and permission to maximize profit by loaning out the same deposits multiple times on the theory that not everything will crash (except when everything crashes and we have to write a bail-out). Campaign finance reform and lobbyist reform will no more solve this problem than will Rand Paul's naive bill that we "force Congressmen to read every bill." People will do what is in their self-interest to do. The solution is to abolish these corrupt powers of government. Frank Guinta will no more do that than he will really work to repeal Obama-care (another excuse for people to pay him for help). He will merely claim to have done so on his notorious "four dozen bills" that he knew were all dead-on-arrival when he voted for them, until right-wing talk-show hosts purr. Let's replace Frank with Rep. Pam Tucker.

- See more at: www.unionleader.com/Franks-Book-Club-Guinta-reads-to-the-financial-sector#sthash.cuHLXcYh.dpuf

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Frank Guinta is deceptive and sloppy!

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"Is Congressman Guinta deceptive or sloppy?"
seacoastonline.com - Letter to the Editor, January 16, 2012

Jan. 12 — To the Editor:

Open letter to Congressman Guinta:

In Somersworth last week, you were asked to explain your vote to raise Medicare premiums 15 percent by the year 2017 and to cut $8 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund.

You denied this vote, saying, "I would disagree with that assessment. I think — uh — I'm not sure — it might be your opinion that I did that — but I disagree that I actually did that." (See youtu.be/saW67_451u0.)

Actually Mr. Guinta, you did vote for exactly that. These two provisions were included in HR 3630, the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, which passed the House on Dec. 13. Roll Call 923 shows that you did vote for this bill. (See clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll923.xml.)

You said, "What we're trying to do relative to Medicare is preserve and protect the program." Really?

In addition to these severe cuts, this harmful bill cuts more than $21 billion from Medicare provider rates, which falls heavily on hospitals. This is not "preserve and protect!" Rather, I'd call it "loot and plunder." It slashes Medicare and other programs that protect most Americans, while — what a surprise! — providing yet another tax giveaway for corporations, which hardly need taxpayer help, since two-thirds of them pay no taxes at all, leaving the rest of us holding the bag.

So Mr. Guinta, did you not bother to read the bill before you voted for it, or were you deliberately trying to mislead? Whether it's deceptive or just sloppy, your constituents deserve an informed and honest representative.

Susan Mayer
Lee, New Hampshire

Frank Guinta fails business!

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"Guinta has no vision and no business sense"
seacoastonline.com - Letter to the Editor - January 12, 2012

Jan. 6 — To the Editor:

Frank Guinta has no business vision and doesn't understand the multiplier effect of money being injected into a community.

Many believed him last year when Guinta said he was pro-business. However, he said he didn't support and thus voted against funding the new bridge in Portsmouth, since there is another bridge in the area. He had no vision or sense of the negative impact on business. When the bridge closed, entrepreneurs on both sides of the bridge started losing business.

Thankfully, money was already set aside for the new bridge. Former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter and other pro-business members of Congress saw the value to the public and business communities and secured federal funding.

Frank Guinta also said he was against investing in rail. Again, he showed his lack of vision and understanding of the multiplier effect of federal money entering the communities along the proposed route. He hurt N.H. businesses and entrepreneurs by failing to see that not only would there be jobs building and maintaining the railroad, but many small businesses would be established, and existing businesses would benefit at every stop. He argued that trains don't make profits. That's not the point. Roads and railroads don't generate profits. However, they do create private business opportunities along the routes, help businesses move products and get employees to work, and provide jobs building and maintaining transportation systems.

Frank Guinta is a right-wing ideologue with no vision and no business sense. He's been extremely unfriendly to small businesses. What a disappointment!

Herb Moyer
Exeter, N.H.

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"Guinta has relentlessly bad judgment"
seacoastonline.com - Letter to the Editor - June 3, 2014

To the Editor:

Former tea partier Congressman Frank Guinta is on another one of his endless tours, this one called a "Middle-Class Economic Recovery Tour." It's ironic because Mr. Guinta shares responsibility for the current economy.

So — who was responsible for the devastating sequestration cuts that, as Mr. Guinta admitted, could endanger Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and its 5,000 jobs and the $624 million it puts into the Seacoast economy? Why, that would be Mr. Guinta himself, who thought sequestration was such a good idea that he voted for it. Now that those untargeted reckless cuts are looking like the destructive policy that they always were, he's hoping we'll forget his former support. Then there were all the furloughs that the sequester brought, which drained millions from the local economy. That's on him too.

When the Republican majority in the U.S. House forced the federal government to shut down late last year, Mr. Guinta was all for it. That shutdown cost U.S. taxpayers $24 billion, according to Standard & Poor's.

The Government Accountability Office reported in March 2014 that sequestration disrupted federal agency operations and caused agencies to significantly reduce or delay compensation, benefit payments, work hours, job incentives, investments, hiring, and public services. Remember that these are the agencies responsible for protecting the border and airline passengers, defending our country, researching cures for cancer, investigating criminal activities, preventing terrorist acts, issuing gas and oil leases, etc.

Mr. Guinta has relentlessly bad judgment about the economy. We can't afford him back in office.

Herb Moyer
Exeter, N.H.

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"Guinta should check facts"
The Concord Monitor, Letters, June 11, 2014

To kick off his so-called “Middle-Class Economic Recovery Tour,” former Congressman Frank Guinta released a statement bewailing the “toxic mix of overspending, overregulating and underappreciating the American worker.”

Not true. Underappreciating the American worker? It’s Guinta doing the underappreciating. He voted against raising the minimum wage while in the New Hampshire House, and ducked recently when asked for his current position. If he’s against it, be honest.

Overspending? Please. According to the Wall Street Journal, “federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.”

Spending rose faster under every recent president, including Ronald Reagan. Federal spending has flattened under President Obama to an annualized rate of just .4 percent.

Overregulating? Not responsible for job losses. Bruce Bartlett, senior policy advisor in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, says government “overregulation” is “a canard invented by Republicans.” Statistics (Bureau of Labor Statistics) show that lack of demand impedes hiring, not government regulation.

The latest (2012) statistics are 36 percent for lack of demand and 3 percent for regulation.

Guinta should stop spouting outdated talking points and check the facts.

BETH OLSHANSKY
Durham, New Hampshire

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