Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my friend from Illinois. I wish to speak for just a moment on the Corker amendment that will be coming up very shortly, and I thank the Presiding Officer for the time. First of all, I thank Senator Gregg, Senator LeMieux, Senator Coburn, and Senator Brown for being cosponsors. I thank Senator Shelby for all he has done to help support and make this amendment possible as well as Senator Isakson, who brings a wealth of experience to this body as it relates to real estate lending. I thank all of them for their support of this amendment. It is a basic, commonsense amendment. I think everybody in this body knows that we as a country are going down a pretty slippery slope and that we as politicians act as enablers. We don't tell people what they need to hear. Instead, we try to give them what they want without any degree of discipline. What this amendment does is restore within the housing market a focus on the core issue that took us into this crisis--something many people in this body do not want to discuss--and that is the fact that there were a lot of loans written to people who had no ability whatsoever to pay them back. So this amendment does some very simple things. No. 1, it requires a very modest 5-percent downpayment for new home mortgages. If someone borrows more than 80 percent loan to value, it requires a credit enhancement--something that has been part of the American psyche for a long time.…”