Jack Reed

Our goal is to change the paradigm within the current system so that it functions.

And if the economy gets worse for reasons not directly related to this, such as the sovereign debt crisis overseas, etc., then the foreclosure problem we face today, you know, the bottom keeps slipping down, down, down, down, down, and…

We have to start moving toward a solution, not simply waiting, because it seems to be getting worse in my mind.

The best outcome is to keep a person in their home and to keep them paying, and we are all advantaged by doing that.

Well, I appreciate what you and your colleagues are doing. It is very important.

This situation was bad a year ago. It is worse today, and it might get worse.

It gives Senator Reed and me real leverage in Washington to be able to do this.

I want to commend Judge Votolato for following that lead.

But it strikes me, stepping back, that because of national policies, Federal Reserve policies, we have lowered the effective interest rates for banks dramatically.

The effort that you have undertaken to come in here and to do that is really valuable for us.

I mean, one of the things that we have been trying to do is to incentivize, one way to describe it, a much more proactive, much more focused can-do attitude on the service of the banks to get it done.

We have to think creatively.

The foreclosure issue is not only a drag on the economy, but... it is a source of exasperation, anxiety, anger, frustration, and much more for families trying to deal with it.

That strikes me as not only unfair but terribly inefficient, because the point of a lot of the macroeconomic policy has been to lower interest rates.

I just find it--'ironic' is too mild a term.

Thank you, Your Honor.

Unless we successfully deal with this issue of foreclosure, the economy will not expand as it should, and people's lives will not return to at least close to normal.

I think, again, if we can get a program like you have suggested--and I concur with the notion there has to be a referee with authority.

I want to commend you because you have identified a significant issue, both the impact on the taxpayer and the impact on the people who we're trying to help, students, people all across this country.

I appreciate the systemic approach, but in just looking back it seems to me that the approach of looking at the risk assessment and evaluating it and seeing that they were doing what they said they were doing did not seem to be…

Let me just say, both to Chairman Gensler and Chairman Schapiro, the comments this morning reflect a collaboration and cooperation that is recent, but is very commendable.

I hope is analytical and apolitical, which attracts the best minds that are looking across the system and forward.

So, besides just the value of efficiency and productivity gains, this is also about freeing up resources and continuing operations overseas and support the fighting forces.

It seems that, wittingly or unwittingly, we created a system that it's much harder to hire a full-time DOD employee than it is to write a contract worth 10 or 20 times more.

Senator Vitter had a hearing in Louisiana. In fact, he asked me if he could do that and I agreed to allow him to do it.