Political Quotes

“A couple of months ago, we passed a good bill to say we would authorize $10 million for State housing finance agencies to help refinance homes where the owners were facing foreclosure. A good approach. This is a disastrous approach. CBO has said that the lenders--the people, some of whom made some of the bad loans in the first place--will dump the worst of their worst loans on FHA. Last week, FHA, floundering under existing portfolio losses, announced $4.6 billion in losses, 22 percent of their reserves, raising questions about their ability to maintain solvency. FHA can't do it. Thirty-five percent of the loans under the HOPE for Homeowners have been bad. The defaults would hurt the FHA. This provision would allow lenders such as Countrywide Financial, which had 11 percent of the subprime market, and according to the papers has $30 billion of the worst loans, to dump those on the FHA. I urge support of the amendment.”