Robin Carnahan: “while the Bush administration has had no problem bailing out Wall Street firms at taxpayers' expense, it has opposed…”

“while the Bush administration has had no problem bailing out Wall Street firms at taxpayers' expense, it has opposed efforts to help ordinary homeowners. As many as 2.8 million Americans could lose their homes in the next 5 years due to the subprime mortgage crisis. Housing prices have dropped so much that homeowners' debt on their houses exceeds equity for the first time since 1945, and now more than 10 percent of homeowners have mortgage loans that are larger than the value of their homes. These troubling signs have been before the administration for many months, but they have refused to bring forth a proposal to address them until yesterday, and that mainly addresses only regulatory issues. Fortunately, this Congress did not follow the White House's lead. This House has already passed legislation this year that would expand affordable mortgage loan opportunities for families at risk of foreclosures. Madam Speaker, this is only the beginning. We can't do this alone. The President must finally recognize there is a problem and be willing to sign these bills into law when they get to his desk.”