Barney Frank: “The inaccurate one is to suggest that it has been held up because of the fact that we want to use some of the money that…”

“The inaccurate one is to suggest that it has been held up because of the fact that we want to use some of the money that will be generated by the bill, by specifically removing the cap on home equity mortgages, for affordable housing. I understand her objection to our trying to spend some money for more affordable housing construction, but that is not what held up the bill. We ran into a dispute between those people who do the home equity mortgage servicing and the AARP over the fees to be charged. We adopted an amendment; it was a bipartisan amendment. Our colleague from Georgia, Mr. Marshall, and the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Ginny Brown-Waite) offered an amendment, and that led to a dispute. I asked that the groups try to work this out, and they have done that, so we are now able to come to the floor with that bill. But we then ran out of time because of the appropriations process. But what held that bill up was that dispute over funding.”