This hearing is long overdue.

We are in the middle of a housing affordability crisis that is crippling our country.

As you said, it does take attention away from national security. It has serious negative effects on morale and can even interrupt their service if it is not addressed.

Americans everywhere deserve to have someone in their corner every day to keep a watchful eye on the financial sector and to protect hardworking people from discrimination and fraud.

Unfortunately, in an industry rife with malpractice, there are still bad actors operating in blatant violation of your recent court ruling regarding deceptive telemarketing practices.

I have also been pleased to see that the CFPB has brought about enforcement actions to curtail the unscrupulous actors in the credit repair marketplace.

It has serious negative effects on morale and can even interrupt their service if it is not addressed, so I look forward to working with you on that issue.

I want to point to the issue of the Office of Servicemember Affairs and how they are working to address the growing number of complaints that members of our Armed Forces have regarding their consumer protection needs.

The Bureau should apply this decision uniformly across the credit repair space to protect our most-vulnerable consumers from being scammed.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking member for this important hearing.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I thank both Congressman Jackson and Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick for their leadership and for co-chairing and co- anchoring tonight's Special Order hour for the Congressional Black…

My constituents deserve to have a Congress that works for them, and right now, they are desperate for solutions to the affordable housing crisis that is gripping our State and the nation.

During a time of continued elevated housing costs, with the average household spending over 30 percent of their income on mortgage or rent, and a shortage of nearly 6.5 million homes, the ability to make ends meet and keep a roof over…

I hope that this subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Housing, will adopt a renewed focus on how we can promote sustainable and affordable housing for everyone.

We can no longer ignore the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters.

Now that the House Floor has finally been reopened for legislative business and we are finally able to get back to doing the people's work, I hope that this subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Housing, will adopt a renewed focus on how we…

Not only the impacts of a catastrophic lapse, but also the underlying cost will not fall on all of our communities equally.

We ought to be concerned about all babies. And we ought to be concerned about, not just winning a war, but winning the peace.

I believe that we should have had language in there about a two-state solution to this problem.

Let me be clear: The response from the United States must be unequivocal and project American strength internationally.

I care about babies in Israel, but I also care about babies in Palestine. Those babies have lives, too.

However, it seems that can only be true if they ever intended to spend money on that in the first place.

Every day that this House of Representatives goes without a Speaker, we are diminished in the eyes of the world and of the people we have an obligation to represent.

So, I simply urge my colleagues to end this mess and begin governing as we were elected to do.

This is something you may not understand, but the hardworking people of Nevada's Fourth do. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is no longer recognized. ____________________