Political Quotes

“This amendment would exempt settlements resolving allegations of predatory or fraudulent conduct involving residential mortgage-backed securities, as we have heard. Ironically, it creates an exception in the very situation in which the abuses we highlighted earlier arose. The key point here is that nothing in the underlying bill prevents direct victims of mortgage fraud from obtaining relief. The concern of this amendment is that there may be cases of generalized harm to communities that cannot be addressed by restitution, but this misses the fundamental point. The Department of Justice has authority to obtain redress for victims. Federal law defines victims to be those ``directly and proximately harmed'' by the defendant's acts. Once those victims have been compensated, deciding whether additional moneys, other than for penalties, should be allocated to address related problems becomes a policy question properly decided by elected representatives in Congress and not agency bureaucrats or prosecutors. Indeed, Congress already funds homeowner assistance programs through the annual appropriations process, balancing it against competing priorities. As we have repeated throughout this debate, the spending power is one of Congress' most effective tools in reining in the executive branch. This is true, by the way, no matter which party is in the White House.…”