Political Quotes

“One of the things, no question, that many banks and credit unions around our country have been concerned about, even though Freddie and Fannie are 90 percent of all home mortgages today--and very dominant, obviously, because of what has happened but also because of the tremendous market share they have had--is if we are going to wind these down, are they going to be assured access into this market. So we have created mechanisms for them to be able to come in through issuers to do this. One of the things so many of the community banks and credit unions have complained about as a tremendous disadvantage with our system was that there was volume pricing. In other words, if you were a big user of Fannie and Freddie, they gave you a big volume discount--Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan. As they tried to process loans through Fannie and Freddie and this whole system, they got big volume discounts, so they were more competitive. These organizations I mentioned are, obviously, important, but the community bankers who mean so much are the ones who drive things back home. The community bankers are members of the Rotary Club, the Lions Club, and are involved in our communities, and they were constantly at a disadvantage as it relates to housing finance. So one of the components of this bill is not only to ensure they get equal access to the system--and we do that very eloquently in this bill--but in addition to that we ensure there is no mechanism that allows for volume pricing.…”