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

But just again, your process, because of the negotiations, because of the complexity, we expect--you expect months from now to have recommendations which might take even further time to implement.

Thank you so much for your work on supporting servicing reform.

Time is of the essence.

You are envisioning a regulatory solution initially which would use what authorities you have, which are substantial.

I think this echoes one of the recommendations that Ms. Thompson has made and which is included in the legislation I have.

The legislative process, as we prove every day, unfortunately is slow.

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

It is not going to work.

Should we mandate that 100 percent of loans should at least be evaluated and offered a modification?

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

But what I am concerned about is that the people who will be left out are the mortgage holders who are struggling to stay in their homes--not the flippers, not those folks, but people who have seen one spouse lose a job, tuition increases…

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…

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

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

We have to think creatively.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I want to commend Judge Votolato for following that lead.

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.

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.