Barney Frank: “Mr. Speaker, this is a composite package. The President some time ago, a couple of weeks ago, urgently asked the…”

“Mr. Speaker, this is a composite package. The President some time ago, a couple of weeks ago, urgently asked the Congress to send him several pieces of legislation, three in particular. One is embodied in the part of the bill that came out of the Ways and Means Committee. Two, in fact, had previously passed the House from our committee, the bill reforming the government sponsored enterprises--and that came out of our committee and on the floor in a form that the administration mostly liked--and the bill to modernize the FHA. In fact, the Senate then acted on the bill to modernize the FHA. We went into conference, we ran into some difficulty. Not a formal conference, but a conversation. What we have done because, as we know, the Senate is in a situation where procedurally it's often harder for them to act, so we are acting on the basis of a Senate bill. We are readopting today two of the pieces we already adopted, reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the FHA modernization. I think it ought to be noted that in both cases they are a recognition by the President that the private sector needs to be able to cooperate with public or quasi-public entities to get the job done. Those who take the philosophy that the market alone is sufficient unto itself, and that public sector intervention will do more harm than good clearly have been repudiated.”