00:00Let's see, Senator Marshall.
00:04Thank you, Chairman, and welcome again to our guests.
00:07I wanted to start just for a second and maybe correct some of the testimony or some of the thoughts from my colleagues across the aisle
00:16and talk about some of the great things HHS has actually done.
00:19They've established their Maha program to address the chronic epidemic that this nation faces.
00:2560% of Americans have a chronic disease.
00:28We're spending 90% of our health care dollars fighting those diseases.
00:33They've banned many of the artificial dyes.
00:36They've enforced executive orders on health care transparency and prior authorization issues,
00:43both of which need to be codified by Congress.
00:46I welcome their research on autism.
00:49They've banned irreversible surgical mutilation, which is basically sterilization of children.
00:55Their operation stork speed has enhanced infant formula safeties, and that's just the start.
01:04I want to quote Secretary Kennedy.
01:06This is from an April 6, 2025 social media post.
01:11The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.
01:16That's not me saying this.
01:17This is Secretary of HHS, Secretary Kennedy.
01:21The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.
01:28Let's start with Dr. Adams.
01:30Dr. Adams, in your role at ACF, just paint the picture for us.
01:34What are you excited about?
01:35What can you move the needle on in your area?
01:39Senator Marshall passes prologue where I intend to spend a disproportionate time of my energy
01:45and a disproportionate amount of my effort is improving child welfare, specifically the
01:50foster care and adoption systems.
01:52Beyond that, the other largest programs at ACF, TANF, working to ensure it is a hand up
02:01and it helps on a path of self-sustainability, early childhood education, as I said, promoting
02:08and strengthening Head Start, as well as the Child Care Block Grant, making sure it works
02:14for parents and for families are going to be areas that I intend to spend my time and energy on.
02:19So how do you do that?
02:20How do you move the needle?
02:22What did you do in the past that moved the needle to make that happen?
02:26Focus on data.
02:27As I showed with Senator Grassley and Hassan, if you walk into any of our offices across
02:34the state, you'll see what our ratio of foster homes to children is.
02:38So having a compelling scoreboard, measuring it, pushing it out, aligning incentives within
02:43the agency, I think are things that are really important.
02:46Okay.
02:46Mr. McCarron, let's go to you next, if you don't mind.
02:50You've talked about the moral imperative of economic growth.
02:54In your view, what are the most promising treasury tools to spur sustainable growth for the future?
03:00What's at your disposal to help grow this economy?
03:04Yes, Senator, thank you for the question.
03:06Within my domain and domestic finance, I think the single most important thing we can do to drive
03:14growth is to revisit the financial regulatory system to ensure it's actually well-tailored
03:20to the goals we're trying to achieve with financial regulation, safety and soundness, financial stability.
03:25I think more concretely, what that really means is we need to ensure that our requirements reflect the
03:31latest and greatest understanding of the actual risk that we're regulating.
03:34So for community banks, I think we need to revisit the tailoring of our regulatory framework coming
03:40out of the financial crisis, ensure that it really is fit for purpose, right?
03:44That it reflects the unique lower risk profiles of community banks.
03:48We need to revisit, like I discussed with Senator Lankford, our deposit insurance regime and
03:54make sure that it also has a level playing field for community banks.
03:58And then we need to extend those same kind of principles to the capital markets, to the housing
04:01finance markets.
04:02Again, the guiding principle here is modernizing regulatory requirements so that they're aligned
04:07with risk.
04:08This is not about weakening requirements.
04:09It's about ensuring that we have a system that achieves safety and soundness, mitigates
04:14risk to financial stability, protects consumers, and does that efficiently and fairly.
04:18Okay.
04:19Why don't you take that just a little bit step, you know, drill down a little bit further,
04:23what that looks like.
04:24How would you implement that?
04:26If you're a community banker and I'm talking to my folks' friends back home, what would you
04:29say to expect then out of the administration to make that happen?
04:32Sure.
04:33Senator, so I would commend Acting Chairman Hill at the FDIC for just putting out recently
04:39a proposal that would index some of these dollar thresholds that trigger heightened supervision.
04:45Many of those were set years, if not decades ago, and have not been indexed to inflation.
04:50This proposal would achieve that index.
04:51I think that's a great concrete step in the right direction.
04:54Similarly, we should revisit the deposit insurance framework.
04:58I think that's one thing we should modernize.
05:00And then what I hear from community banks is that much of the burden is on the consumer
05:04compliance side and the anti-money laundering side.
05:08I think, especially on AML anti-money laundering, there's a real opportunity there to ensure
05:13that the regulatory scheme is truly aligned with the national security priorities, that
05:19banks can allocate risk from lower risk activities to higher risk activities.
05:24Believe it or not, this is actually a controversial statement in the last administration.
05:27Some of this is just basic common sense, but I think if we execute and implement on it, it'll
05:33really drive the ability of banks to do what they're supposed to do, which is lend to their
05:37communities.
05:38Thanks.
05:39We ran out of time, but I also take a look at it.
05:40It seems like there's just one regulatory group after another in the banks asking the
05:44same questions, and it's just taking time away from other good opportunities in the banks.
05:50Thank you so much.
05:51Chairman, I yield back.
