Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to join with my colleague from Rhode Island, Mr. Cicilline, in extending my condolences to the family of Julius Michaelson, former attorney general of Rhode Island, a dedicated public servant, someone…

Mr. Speaker, last month the Congressional Budget Office released a report that examined household income distribution between 1979 and 2007. The most disturbing figure to me in this report is that the top 1 percent of income earners have…

Mr. Chair, during rollcall vote No. 840 on H.R. 2838, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``aye'' when I should have voted ``no.''

We actually could have force-on-force conflict.

Many of our communities continue to be plagued by gun violence.

We can have different ideas of the extent to which various gun laws should or should not be extended, but there really should be a bipartisan agreement that we should effectively and sensibly enforce the gun laws that we have.

From your perspective, the Government of Iraq was not prepared to give appropriate immunities to American forces?

we do not want to compromise the independence of FHFA, but we do not want an agency that is paralyzed because of the complexity of the issues they face

You are very clear in your September 23 evaluation that the FHFA has too few examiners.

Are they moving aggressively to fulfill your recommendations and to correct this, and do they have the resources to do it?

But I think, basically, the remaining question rests on this whole topic of how well they are doing maintaining the value as a conservator.

To take all those off the table and just sit pat I think is not the way to minimize losses going forward

I think you will have to, because you have identified this key fault line in the Agency.

I think we all have to be much more creative, and I think you have to be much more demanding in terms of those types of performance ends you expect.

So that there is no legal ability for the Department of Treasury to veto your decision.

The overall health of the housing market, its sort of stabilizing and then beginning to slowly appreciate, is ultimately what will make the balance sheets of Fannie and Freddie look much, much, much, much better.

Just to try to, in my own mind, at least, clarify, these contracts were approved by FHFA, not by the Department of Treasury, is that correct?

There are many who would look at the performance of Fannie and Freddie and say that, frankly, they have not done a very good job in those areas that you have pointed out--loss mitigation, getting people into modifications.