Henry Cuellar for Congress | Proven Leadership for Texas

Fiscal Accountability, Transparency & Public Trust

Congressman Cuellar understands how important economic security is to the nation's hard-working families. Millions of Americans rely on the national economy for their long-term prosperity, investments, education and retirement. That's why he supports protecting America's hard-working families, small businesses and seniors by passing meaningful legislation that supports jobs, stimulates growth and promotes accountability, transparency and efficiency between the nation's economy and consumers.

That's why Henry Cuellar strongly supports corporate accountability and transparency. A market economy prospers when consumers can depend on the government to root out waste, fraud and abuse while protecting consumers from interest-rate hikes, excessive fees and retaliatory penalties. That's why Henry Cuellar supports legislation in Congress which protects consumers from predatory abuses throughout the private and public market.

The economy is a critical partnership between the consumer and corporate America, this symbiotic relationship is the backbone to our free-market economy and we should preserve its role in society while putting the right regulations in place.

Protecting Americans, Preserving a Free-Market Economy

In 2009, Congressman Henry Cuellar passed meaningful reforms in the U.S. House of Representatives to protect consumers and preserve what's good about our free-market economy.

Credit Card Reform: On May 20th, 2009 Henry Cuellar helped pass the Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights, landmark legislation to protect millions of Americans from predatory credit card practices which hurt, mislead and overcharge consumers. H.R. 627, is credit card legislation built on bi-partisan ideas to protect consumers from unfair interest-rate spikes, small print bill statements, double billing, due-date gimmicks and predatory lending to young people. These reforms are common sense solutions to solve common place abuses between credit card companies and consumers.

Consumer Product Safety: In July 2008, Henry Cuellar helped pass vitally important consumer product safety reforms to protect American consumers from faulty, unsafe and harmful products. This landmark, bipartisan package of reforms has taken great strides to protect American families and children from lead in toys, contaminated foods, dangerous cleaning products and recalled goods. The Consumers Union, a nonpartisan organization fully supported these reforms to shore up Americans' safety in the marketplace. The bill made more inspectors available nationwide to inspect cargo and consumers products imported from foreign nations, strengthened the resources at the Consumer Product Safety Commission and increased fines and penalties for violating product safety laws.

Mortgage Reform & Anti-Predatory Lending Reforms: In May 2009, Henry Cuellar helped pass sweeping mortgage reforms to help brace America's housing market and to stem the tide of abusive lending practices which contributed to the nation's worst housing crisis in over 25 years. The Mortgage Reform & Anti-Predatory Lending Act, has strengthened the nation's home lending market by ensuring borrowers receive safe, sound and stable loans. It also ensure homeowners qualify for the home loans they're applying for. And it ensures that the secondary lending market is also as thoroughly regulated as the primary lending market in order to prevent the housing meltdown which began in 2008. Mortgage-backed securities are now stringently reviewed to prevent financial schemes which hurt all Americans during the housing crisis and since passed into law, these meaningful reforms have shored up the solvency of our nation's home loans.

Committee on Government Oversight & Reform

Henry Cuellar serves on the powerful House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. This committee is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and has widespread jurisdiction to investigate any federal program, federal agency, federal initiative and those federal efforts to serve Americans, the American economy and marketplace. This committee is the arm of the U.S. Congress to investigate waste, fraud and abuse in the U.S. Government and those government agencies which oversee and regulate public and private organizations.

Henry Cuellar is proud to serve on the House Committee on Government Oversight & Reform which has jurisdictional responsibility over the following:

• Federal civil service, including intergovernmental personnel and the status of officers and employees of the United States, including their compensation, classification, and retirement
• Federal paperwork reduction
• Government management and accounting measures
• Overall economy, efficiency, and management of government operations and activities, including federal procurement
• National Archives
• Population and demography, including the U.S. Census
• Postal service generally, including transportation of the mails
• Public information and records
• Relationship of the federal government to the states and municipalities generally
• Reorganizations in the executive branch of the government