My amendment has the purpose of making very clear what we're doing today to the American people. This amendment makes clear that we are ending a program that has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of underwater borrowers. H.R. 830, the FHA Refinance Program Termination Act, ignores the underwater borrowers of this country and does nothing to help families save their homes. Very simply, the bill ends a program that has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of people whose mortgages now exceed the value of their home, and also help the communities and help the overall economy. The majority crafted a so-called ``open rule'' in such a way that it's nearly impossible to offer any substantive amendments--a number were voted down on a party line in the committee debates--in response to this reality. In an effort to highlight the true nature of this harmful bill, my amendment identifies the numbers in each State of the hundreds of thousands of underwater borrowers across the country and makes clear that the Republican majority has no solution to the problem, nor do they have any desire to find one. Americans must be made aware of the intention of this majority. This program allows borrowers to write down at least 10 percent to reduce the debt burden. They are all paying. They are in financial difficulty. Banks then can get an insured FHA guarantee and move forward and people can keep living in their homes and can keep participating in the economy.…
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