Political Quotes

“Senator Isakson and I have offered an amendment which will create a $15,000 tax credit for any purchaser of a home within a year after the date of enactment. There is no recapture clause for that. We do so to offer one of what we hope will be a series of measures to revive the housing market and housing values as a critical part of reviving our economy and creating jobs. Very briefly, it was the subprime mortgage scandal, the bubble in housing prices, the collapse of housing prices, that has been at the heart of the follow-on collapse in our financial institutions and the collapse in confidence, particularly, the confidence of the American consumer, whose demand, whose consumption, drives 70 percent of the American economy. So bottom line: I saw a statistic from a reputable economist about a week ago, 2 weeks ago now, that estimated in the last year there had been a loss of $4 trillion in the value of real estate in our country-- $4 trillion. We are talking about $4 trillion of value in houses, which for most Americans--middle-income, lower middle, and lower income--who could afford to own a house, was the major asset they had, the major asset of value, the major source within them for which they had economic confidence because it was worth something beyond what the mortgage was. That is part of what gave them the confidence then to go out and consume, to drive our economy forward.”