Richard Shelby

Homeowners in need will be better served if we actually identify the root causes of foreclosures and craft effective solutions rather than simply implementing policies to counteract what we think is the problem.

People like Donna didn't deserve to lose their homes. Neither do the 10,000 families that will receive a foreclosure notice today or the 60,000 families in my home state of Connecticut that could find themselves in foreclosure over the…

Without a huge haircut--Senator Dodd was talking about reducing it down to something people can pay, realistically afford--aren't we wasting our time here?

Secretary Allison, Treasury earlier this year released information stating that the Home Affordability Mortgage Program--I will just call it HAMP--will use $50 billion in TARP funds to modify mortgages.

Two-and-a-half years.

It is going to be difficult to deal with, isn't it?

But whatever we say or do policywise, or you implement the policy, if the market doesn't respond to it favorably, it is not going to work, is it?

Clearly, this is a regrettable policy failure.

We share your frustration with the slow pace of efforts to help homeowners get out of bad mortgages and into mortgages that will allow them to stay in their homes and build equity at the same time.

Every single law you have ever passed, every regulation on the books is trumped by this.

Shouldn't the language require that the real benefits must outweigh real costs to consumers and covered persons instead of that?

The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

The Administration's proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency... results in the Government... deciding which Americans will have access to certain financial products.

Financial institutions, as I understand the proposal, will no longer be primarily concerned with discerning and meeting the needs of their customers.

I must say candidly that I was shocked when I realized how this legislation will actually work.

In plain English, right?

Are consumers protected when they cannot buy products and services that are available to others?

I believe we need a system where we can accommodate both.

It is clear that in the Administration's plan, disclosure, no matter how complete, is not enough.

Our idea in the legislation is not to prevent people from making mistakes. It is to make it easier for them to avoid mistakes.

You state, Mr. Secretary, repeatedly that the status quo is not acceptable because things are changing every day in the marketplace.

We appreciate you coming here today, but even you admit in your studies, and this is an outgrowth of some of those studies, that this is a radical departure from the way we have regulated things before.

We have tried to let the market work, let the consumer, an informed consumer, make decisions, not a bureaucrat make the decisions.

To move away fast and furious from a classical model of regulation, we had better be really careful.

But you are really saying that you don't trust the consumer to make decisions for themselves, in a sense.