Brittany Pettersen: “I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, I thank Ranking Member Waters for her…”

“I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, I thank Ranking Member Waters for her remarks in support of the amendment. Once again, ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable housing is a priority of mine and the Democrats on the Financial Services Committee. We must ensure that middle-class home buyers have access to our housing market. Unfortunately, this legislation will not reduce costs for the middle-class and first-time home buyers. Not only are we focusing on a narrow subset of fee increases that are supposed to target wealthy home buyers, individuals purchasing a second home, and people buying investment homes, they are tying the hands of the FHFA in moving forward in changing their fee structures on a more regular basis to address changing needs. This will make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac less available to support the housing market if there is a future fiscal crisis, and it only threatens our housing market. Once again, Mr. Chair, if you want to make sure that fees are not increased for the middle class, then you should support my commonsense amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time. {time} 1030”