Political Quotes

“In the coming days, the Financial Services Committee will be presenting two very important proposals to help more on the mortgage crisis. One, we will provide some loan-ability and guarantee-ability through the Federal Housing Administration to lenders who are willing to write down loans and help people who are facing foreclosure and who may be in distress on their homes in order to make more money available to prevent foreclosures, and to help those, say at least 1 million, perhaps up to 2 million people who have been in foreclosures. The second thing is we expect to propose a program of loans and grants to help States and cities acquire properties that have been foreclosed and facilitate returning them to the rolls as owner-occupied or rental units. Taken together, these initiatives are going to be very important. They are going to allow millions of families to avoid disasters, they are going to help hard-pressed jurisdictions avoid the cascade of deteriorating neighborhoods and abandoned houses that follow the kind of crises we have seen, and they are going to help stem the steep and destabilizing decline in house prices that led to and is intensifying the financial crisis, because we cannot allow this crisis to continue unabated. This Congress is ready to act. We are going to help middle-class and working families out of this hole.”