Barney Frank: “it becomes clear that for many in the minority this is an opportunity to punish Barack Obama for the mistakes made by…”

“it becomes clear that for many in the minority this is an opportunity to punish Barack Obama for the mistakes made by George Bush. The gentleman says we should have a plan. In fact, what they are objecting to is the plan. Here is where we differ: They have said, the gentleman who just spoke, the ranking member of the full committee, ``Let's ask the President to tell us what he plans to do.'' We want to do it the opposite way. We want to pass this bill to tell the President what we think should be done. Now, it doesn't get specific as to institutions. It shouldn't. We don't pick institutions here. We empower them and direct them, in some cases, to deal with the whole economy and with classes of institutions. There is no selection here by Congress of this or that company or even line of business. Secondly, the gentleman closed by saying why should the majority respond to the foreclosure issue. And the answer is that the foreclosure issue hurts everybody in this country. It reduces property values too radically. It reduces the capacity of institutions that have these assets that are held. It hurts pension funds. It hurts a whole range of people. It hurts people's 401(k)s. The whole society has suffered from this improvidence. And I would note again, in 2007, the majority in the House, when we became the majority, voted to ban these loans from being made whether the fault was on the part of the borrower or the lender.”