Luis Gutiérrez

So you are a thief on the one hand but you are very generous with the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

It seems to me if we want to know, we should find out who they were and call them.

I am listening to the chairman what the purpose of the hearing is, and then I am reading the testimony.

I believe the way this hearing is being conducted makes clear that the purpose today is to score political points and generate exciting headlines.

Why didn't we ask any of them to come and testify before us?

I have 11 letters in support of the HOME Program, and I ask unanimous consent to submit them for the record.

The embezzlement that we are going to hear about from the convicted felons began under George Bush's Administration.

I have never had the primary first witnesses who come before the committee be two convicted felons.

I think that I am looking forward to those studies and making sure that the public has a broad understanding of those studies so that they can be better protected.

But if you have to pay the taxes, and you have to fix the leaky roof, and you don't understand all of the conditions, a reverse mortgage could literally put you on the street without a stream of income.

I am sure that makes everybody in America feel so warm and fuzzy about the Congress of the United States and what we are doing, because the prudential regulator is being defended here in this fine committee hearing.

Let us just not look at it from one perspective of revenue, but let us look at the potential of additional revenue not only in the banking industry but to other individuals as it pertains to those undocumenteds who are here and needing…

I guess a slum landlord would say the same thing about regulatory issues when it comes to certain standards that you have to give housing.

How high do we expect to set the bar in order for an insurance company to be considered risky so that we can have additional oversight to keep it from bringing down our entire economy?

I want to remind my colleagues that we were very careful to define the FIO in such a way that limits any negative impact on the industry.

Some of my Republican colleagues have characterized the FIO as a regulatory threat and have attacked it just like they have attacked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Let me just suggest to you, since you are not a regulator and you are a monitor, if you monitor AIG, could you call me right away so we can tell the world about the pending disaster in case they come once again to cripple our economic…

I think everybody should be served, just to make that point.

We are strong. We want a good, clean community.

So I just wanted to draw on that and to thank you, because it is a hard job.

If Congress somehow increased Head Start Programs and nutritional Programs for people, that might actually help people get--if we sponsor job training Programs and skill training Programs so they would have new skills so they could go out…

If Congress actually supported increasing minimum wage in this country, that might help you take people to self-sufficiency.

If Congress increased Pell grants so that people could go to college instead of refuse to increase Pell grants, that might help you take people to self-sufficiency.

Maybe the next time we talk about the $100 billion that we subsidize housing in America through the deduction we give people on their interest, we should talk about crime, too.

Because in the beginning, many of us were heartened that there would be tens of billions of dollars available, and there was even an indication that the settlement would be across-the-board.