Bob Menendez Jr.

I just do not understand how extracting oil from the ground is manufacturing, because that would make everybody who owns a well with water a water company that should be subject to getting the same deduction.

Our bill will make it easier for homeowners to refinance and lower their mortgage payments, which is both a popular and common sense way to help the housing market.

Finally, I know that earlier you mentioned in your testimony, legislation that Mr. Nelson and Mr. Roberts are sponsoring, that I am co-sponsoring, with reference to long-term care hospital improvements, which outlines specific criteria to…

Instead of supporting--which was the intention of the rum carry-over provision--the people of the territories to help improve the standard and quality of their lives, what we are doing is having millions of dollars go for profits for…

Our bill would help $17.5 million borrowers who have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans but who are trapped paying interest rates above 5 percent because of barriers to refinancing.

Really significant. So if I have been patching the roof that is leaking in my home, I now will have the wherewithal to replace it, which is, of course, of value to preserve the property value, but also has a tremendous economic ripple…

Allowing a homeowner to refinance from a loan that is 6-percent interest to a loan that is 4-percent interest, for example, would save them hundreds of dollars a month, putting more money in their pockets, reducing defaults and…

As a matter of fact, Professor Mayer at our Subcommittee hearing that I chaired a few weeks ago estimated that it would result in GSE profits of as much as $23.7 billion.

You mention in your testimony that lenders in the HARP program report that borrowers are saving as much as $2,500 per year, which, as you point out, is the equivalent of a big tax cut for those borrowers.

It includes fully funding Project Based Section 8 contracts in an area where I think short-funding them would be a mistake that would push costs into future years.

I am very concerned about the affordability in housing, particularly in States like New Jersey, that have long had high housing costs.

Given all of the challenges and the affordability of housing right now, is this not exactly the wrong time to enact the severe cuts to HUD's budget that the House, I see, is proposing?

It also includes Sustainable Communities grants, a letter I led with Senator Landrieu that got a quarter of all Senators on it, which urges funding for locally and regionally driven planning, which is key to economic development, smart…

On top of the preexisting challenge of housing affordability across the Nation, especially in high cost States like New Jersey, we now have both foreclosures and a housing market that is just beginning to recover.

I believe the Congress should act as called for by the President, as proposed under this existing legislation.

I appreciate the opportunity to offer remarks on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association at this hearing.

The HARP reforms implemented last fall removed significant frictions in the program, and early reports indicate increasing numbers of underwater borrowers are now benefiting from the program.

The activities I described appear to directly violate these congressional mandates.

We have got to make sure that small and mid-sized business moves into this export market.

But we always hear, I hear many of my colleagues here in speech after speech talk about small businesses and mid-sized businesses being the backbone of America, the job creators, the ones that are going to help us lead the way into greater…

And in your examples of successful leveraging or investments under the Choice Neighborhoods program created a ripple effect, would those have taken place but for Choice Neighborhoods, the likelihood of that?

Invite me to your next Choice Neighborhoods planning session so that I can share your process.

I remain concerned about the negative effects on the physical state of public housing throughout the country during a time of declining Federal and State budgets for housing assistance.

I am hoping that Choice Neighborhoods can go beyond that.

HOPE VI changed the face of public housing in America, but in many neighborhoods that is simply not enough.