John Ensign: “The case has been made that we need to fix housing first because it is the underlying cancer that is affecting our…”

“The case has been made that we need to fix housing first because it is the underlying cancer that is affecting our economy, and that cancer is spreading to other parts of the economy. If we don't fix the underlying problem, it will not matter what we do with the rest of the spending bill. The spending bill will not help the economy. It is going to continue to get worse and worse. If home values continue to go down, no amount of money will help. We will have to have three or four TARP funds, trillions of dollars, and it is not going to help because we have not fixed the underlying problem. Several of us got together. I happen to be the lead author on the bill, but this is really a compilation of many minds trying to fix housing. We have incorporated one of the ideas from Senator Isakson. I will let him describe that. One of the hallmarks of the bill is we try to fix housing in the bill. We eliminate the wasteful spending, and we have some targeted tax credits for families and small businesses to create jobs. We try to take care of the whole package, and we do it in a fiscally responsible way, so the total cost will be under $500 billion. It is not the $1.1 trillion the other side of the aisle has put forward. Such spending would put a tremendous burden on future generations.”