Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me speak to this amendment. I offer this amendment along with my distinguished colleague from Georgia, Senator Isakson, to temporarily restore the conforming loan limits that expired--the loan limits we had under the law that created the opportunity to loan at these levels--on September 30 of this year. In past years, extending these loan limits has usually occurred on the THUD appropriations bills. As the chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, I can tell you that getting our housing market moving again is one of the most important tasks facing our country today because if we do not get that weak housing market moving again, we will not get the kind of robust economic recovery that the American people deserve. Historically, whenever we have been in the midst of an economic challenge or a recession, housing has been part of what has led us out of that recession. Congress could be doing a great deal to get the housing market moving again. But perhaps the first rule we should follow is: Do no harm. Do no harm. But at this point, Congress, in my view, is doing harm to the housing market and to our economic recovery by allowing the higher loan limits to expire. With this bipartisan amendment, we could easily correct this problem. The lower loan limits of the Federal Housing Administration, government-sponsored enterprises, and Veterans Administration have already resulted in a reduction of consumer credit in 669 counties across 42 States in our country.…”