The House Financial Services Committee on September 2 held a hearing on "Strengthening the American Economy: Promoting Growth, Opportunity, and Prosperity." Materials from the hearing are posted here. The witnesses were:

• Heath Tarbert, President, Circle
• Kathleen Kraninger, President and CEO, Florida Bankers Association
• Lynn Martin, President, New York Stock Exchange
• Alex Pollock, Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
• Darrick Hamilton, University Professor, the New School, and Chief Economist, AFL-CIO

Summary. The hearing served as a referendum on competing views of the economy and the committee's recent legislative accomplishments. Republicans pointed to enactment of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act and last year's GENIUS Act on stablecoins regulation, along with House passage of the INVEST Act (HR 3343), CLARITY Act (HR 3633), and Main Street Capital Access Act (HR 4437), as evidence that Congress and the administration were expanding housing supply, strengthening community banks, improving access to capital and promoting U.S. leadership in financial innovation. Witnesses including Circle's Tarbert, the Florida Bankers Association's Kraninger, the NYSE's Martin and the Mises Institute's Pollock generally echoed those themes, arguing that regulatory clarity, capital formation, housing-supply reforms, and digital asset legislation would support economic growth and preserve US competitiveness. Housing affordability emerged as the hearing's clearest area of bipartisan agreement, with members from both parties highlighting the recently enacted bipartisan housing bill as a significant step toward increasing housing supply and reducing barriers to home ownership.

Democrats argued that affordability has deteriorated under the Trump administration despite those legislative achievements. Their questions focused heavily on tariffs, the war with Iran, rising interest rates, the national debt, CFPB oversight, medical debt, wealth inequality and concerns surrounding cryptocurrency regulation. The AFL-CIO's Darrick Hamilton served as the principal voice advancing that critique, arguing that economic gains were being concentrated among higher-income households while ordinary Americans faced rising costs and declining affordability. As a result, much of the hearing reflected a broader partisan debate over whether current economic conditions stem from excessive regulation and constrained growth, as Republicans contended, or from trade policies, fiscal decisions and weakened consumer protections, as Democrats argued. Alongside those disagreements, members also debated the future of digital assets, stablecoins, tokenization, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Additional information is available in the attached WCEY Alert.