my hope is that mr. dodd and mr. frank had done in requiring the semi annual reports will give us enough empirical evidence so as to convince the public and members of congress this agency is vital and important. with this agency having returned $3 billion to 9.7 million consumers, that speaks volumes. i would also add the question is whether or not we would have received this $3 billion place back in the hands of consumers if we did not have the consumer financial protection bureau. my suspicion is probably not. i'll ask the direct her to elaborate at a later time. we have it. the question is can they keep their? i yield back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. duffy for one minute. punic thank you, mr. chairman. i'm here with a hopeful heart to the director is going to renew his commitment to provide is so thin and transparent testimonies consistent this promise and the promise made from the cfpb to the american people. i'm interested in hearing testimony in regard to the data collection program

mr. nigel dodds. >> may i join the prime minister and the leader of the opposition in paying warm tribute? he was a fine, decent and honourable man who was a great friend to northern ireland and all its people. he will be sadly missed not only in this house but throughout northern ireland. we offer our sincere condolences to his wife and family at this difficult time. may i also commend the prime minister and welcome the fact that he has made a commitment on the triple-lock guarantee for pensioners if he is returned as prime minister in the next parliament, and can i verify ask him to clarify whether he will commit to retaining the winter fuel allowance under its current eligibility thresholds and as a universal benefit? >> well, first of all, can i thank him for what he says on -- about paul goggins. on the issue of pensions, it is important to recognise that we are only able to make a commitment to the triple lock, which has been important in this parliament because we are , committed to raising the pension age to 66, then 67 and so on. that means that the pension increase is affordable

mr. speaker, during the period of overly burdensome big government of obamacare and of dodd-frank and thousands and thousands of more regulations costing americans literally trillions of dollars, it's really no surprise that the economic growth and job creation in this country remain sluggish. you know, america's small businesses, they are at the primary engine of job creation, well, they're the ones disproportionately affected by this deluge of new rules and regulation coming out of washington daily. in -- according to a recent survey, government regulation and red tape is the single most important problem facing them. so while our colleagues in the senate appear unwilling these days to pass any legislation to help create jobs, well, we have h.r. 2274 in the house we take up and it's done in a bipartisan manner. it's a commonsense piece of legislation that will remove some of these unnecessary regulations and obstacles to small business development and growth and job creation. what it will do, let me explain this, would exempt brokers who perform services in connection with the transfer of own

mrs. clinton. saying bill richardson investigated john edwards. chris dodd step down.er to a punch line, dead. that is horrifying. and some other comments about senator kerry. how much credence do you give this, mark halpern? >> it's been known and reported that they had a strong recollection of all the people who had crossed her. those endorsements were not insignificant. that race was so close. the timing of those endorsements and the ones on tlas were huge in terms of getting the establishment shifted away from the clintons to president obama and i'm not surprised that they had a numerical rating at all because this is how strongly they felt about the degree of betrayal like bill richardson which president clinton put in the cabinet and the kennedy family they felt they had done a lot for. >> chuck todd? >> it's interesting. doug band was, in many ways, an enforcer a lot of times so democratic candidates running in 2010 and 2012, a lot of times they would get frustrated and run into a wall. they wanted bill clinton to campaign for them and couldn't get hillary clint

invite me to watch one of those movies sometime because chris dodd works -- is the leader of the motion picture association of america. mr. president, another just short thing i want to say. over the years, i have come to admire so very, very much our pages. they sacrifice to come here. it's not easy for them to come here to go to school for a semester, but they do. and this school that they go to is no soft school. it's hard. it's hard. they -- they start school at 6:00 in the morning, i think it's 6:00, they go for a couple of hours. i know they are supposed to get up around 5:00. i -- they -- it is such a good environment. we have gone out of our way to have a pleasant place for them to live, the so-called dorm. they have monitors who watch them so very, very closely. their parents don't have to worry about them. and it's a good experience. they see what's happened -- they see what happens on a daily basis in the bowels of government in the united states senate. they will go different ways. they are all juniors in high school. they will go back and complete their high school and go on to college, but their entire life