Capitol Building, by Connor Gan is licensed under Unsplash+ License

Today, July 20th, 2026, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist is urging House offices to vote Yes on H.R. 6955, the Main Street Capital Access Act. The bill would help incentivize formation of new banks and reduce regulatory burdens on existing ones. If enacted, it would be the most significant pro-growth banking law since the passage of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (S.2155). The bill would continue building off of S.2155’s success in tailoring bank regulation to fit their size profiles and ensure the American financial system remains competitive and responsive to the needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and communities.

The letter can be read here:

July 20th, 2026
To: Members of the U.S House of Representatives
From: Grover Norquist
Re: Support The Main Street Capital Access Act


I urge all members of the House of Representatives to support the Main Street Capital Access Act, (H.R. 6955), introduced by House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-Ark.) and Financial Institutions Subcommittee Chairman Andy Barr (R-Ky.). The bill promotes credit access, competition, and will serve to help increase economic growth. It would the most consequential pro-growth banking bill since President Trump signed The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (S.2155) into law in 2018.


The American banking system is the envy of the world. Roughly 4,300 banks serve American communities. Canada has about 80. The United Kingdom roughly 270. The entire European Union, across 27 countries, has about 5,400. Community banks hold just 15 percent of the banking industry’s loans, but they make 36 percent of small business loans and 70 percent of agricultural loans. These banks are the backbone of American communities and small businesses and remain a competitive advantage for the U.S. economy.


However, despite their importance, Washington has crushed new bank formation. According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, between 2000 and 2009, 45 new banks were chartered annually. After Dodd-Frank, since 2010, that number has dropped to five banks a year on average.


Dodd-Frank imposed significant compliance and regulatory burdens on small and mid-sized banks. A study from the St. Louis Fed estimated that regulation costs roughly 22 percent of community bank net income. No entrepreneur raises capital to open a bank that spends a fifth of its earnings on paperwork. That’s why the Main Street Act continues to build upon S.2155, which was passed into law to right-size bank regulation to begin addressing the issue of overregulation by Dodd-Frank.


The Main Street Act gives new banks three years to phase in federal capital requirements instead of demanding full compliance on day one and cuts the Community Bank Leverage Ratio for rural community banks to 7.5 percent. Regulators would also be required to approve or deny merger applications within 90 days instead of burying them. The bill also extends the Community Bank Leverage Ratio to banks with up to $15 billion in assets and lowering the statutory capital requirements from 8–10 percent to 6–8 percent.


The bill adds transparency and honesty by reforming bank supervision. The bill requires objective, quantifiable criteria in bank supervision examinations and narrows the use of subjective components such as “management”. The bill would also force the Fed, OCC, and FDIC to disclose their interactions with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision — a body with no supranational authority and no legal force in the United States.


Most importantly, H.R. 6955 ends debanking by statute. President Trump’s Executive Order 14331 directed regulators to strip “reputational risk” from supervision, and the OCC and FDIC finalized that rule in April. But what one administration writes by rule, the next administration can rewrite. Only Congress has the power to permanently end debanking.


The Main Street Capital Access Act is a comprehensive, pro-growth reform that reverses more than a decade of stagnation in American banking. This bill will support American entrepreneurs, communities, and the economy. I urge all members to vote YES on H.R. 6955.


Onward,
Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform