Marcy Kaptur: “I would like to next turn to the issue of mortgages and the foreclosure rates around this country which are rising in…”

“I would like to next turn to the issue of mortgages and the foreclosure rates around this country which are rising in areas such as I represent. Is this bill that is coming out of the Financial Services Committee, in granting all these powers across our financial system, going to do anything to help the American people who are being foreclosed in their homes? You know what the answer is? No. This year we will lose another 2.4 million families. None of these so-called modification programs are really working, and yet we have a major bill coming to the floor that doesn't address that issue when the very institutions being granted power are the ones that did this to us in the first place. So we should be able to exact from them some type of resolution for the American people who are paying their salaries--literally--by the taxpayer bailout, and yet we're not dealing with the mortgage foreclosure issue. And why aren't we? Because if you look at who is holding the mortgage today and who is servicing the mortgage, guess what? There's a conflict of interest because over half of the mortgages have second mortgages, and the servicing companies owned by the banks are the same institutions that have a relationship with the banks that hold the second mortgage on the home. So, for example, if J.P. Morgan is servicing your loan but JPMorgan also owns the second mortgage, they have no interest in servicing your loan. And that's going on with all the institutions that I listed earlier.”