Marcy Kaptur: “the wonderful opportunity of a new Congress is that it is not bound by the mistakes of the past. As foreclosure rates…”

“the wonderful opportunity of a new Congress is that it is not bound by the mistakes of the past. As foreclosure rates rise in Ohio and across our Nation, it's pretty obvious that the Federal responses are not working on Main Street, whether it's the $700 billion Wall Street bailout or the $300 billion FHA loan workout program. Citigroup, for example, was one of the big culprits that caused the financial meltdown; yet, they got paid $25 billion from the public Treasury. But Ohio, where foreclosures are raging, got nothing. Instead, out-of-State megabanks are buying up Ohio banks, while more Ohio homeowners get booted out of their homes. Last year, in my home County of Lucas, another 4,100 homes were foreclosed. That's a minimum of 10,000, 10,000 more people who were not helped by Treasury's failed TARP program. Ohio's families alone need $20 billion to stop the real estate hemorrhage which is less than what Citibank received, and would go to real people, not ersatz and paper trades on Wall Street. In Toledo, Ohio, you can now buy a home for $4,500, but last fall, rather than local homeowners being refinanced in this Wall Street bailout bill, one California investor figured it out. He bought 137 foreclosed properties in Toledo at auction, an auction sponsored by the very Wall Street banks that caused the trouble in the first place. Houses are being auctioned at prices so low we could have put the original occupants back in.”