Carolyn Maloney: “For everyone that cares about the issues of poverty, housing, economic growth, and community life, the last couple of…”

“For everyone that cares about the issues of poverty, housing, economic growth, and community life, the last couple of weeks have brought some troubling news. Wednesday came the news that purchases of new U.S. homes declined last month to the slowest pace on record, and new home prices dropped to the lowest level since December, 2003. And yet over the past 2 weeks, House Republicans have said with their votes again and again that their policy to help homeowners is to just give up; to throw in the towel and to say that there's just nothing that Congress can do or will do to address the problem to help struggling American families. They have already voted to terminate three Federal programs that help Americans who are struggling to stay in their homes. And now we are considering yet another one that has helped more than 32,000 New Yorkers stay in their homes--over 600,000 across our great country. What bothers me is that they are leading the effort to eliminate these programs, voting against them, and yet they have no plans of their own to address the foreclosure crisis that is hurting neighborhoods and disrupting lives throughout their country, like the jobs bills they said they would have. We have yet to see them. The only initiative to help housing is to eliminate the programs that are already there. The HAMP program has been successful in helping, as I said, over 600,000.…”