Ed Case: “amidst all of the disagreement and debate on this floor over things like war and deficits, this is a good-news story. I…”

“amidst all of the disagreement and debate on this floor over things like war and deficits, this is a good-news story. I want to start some decades ago recognizing my political mentor, a former Member of this Chamber, my predecessor, Spark Matsunaga, a veteran himself, who went back and tried to determine whether the veterans home loan program, a successful program, was working for Native American veterans living on tribal or trust territory lands. The answer was a resounding ``no.'' The reason was because those lands contained restraints on alienation that are not applicable to other lands. So, therefore, conventional mortgage practices were not working. My predecessor and my current Senator, Daniel Akaka, took up the cause and initiated the legislation which we are now addressing to provide for this program to be applied on trust territory lands, the lands of the indigenous peoples of our country, whether they be in Alaska, in North America or Hawaii or the Pacific Islands. A very successful program arose, so successful that in the Pacific, in 300 loans granted under this program over the last 10 years, there has been one delinquency out of 300 programs. Three hundred programs, 100 paid in full, 200 being paid in full, one delinquency, a fantastic program that has accomplished its purpose. This is good news. This is good news because we made a mistake and we are coming back to correct it and we all know it.…”