Rob Bishop: “I close with some trepidation, as I heard the debate today about continuing resolutions, health programs, teachers, gas…”

“I close with some trepidation, as I heard the debate today about continuing resolutions, health programs, teachers, gas prices, and capital gains. But let me risk something and actually talk about the bill at hand. First of all, it's an impeccably good rule, which allows an open amendment process for anyone who wants to think through an amendment and prefile it. Not a gotcha amendment, but a real amendment to this bill. It's a good way of handling the situation on the floor. I am very proud of the Rules Committee for presenting this type of a rule. Secondly, you have heard from the sponsor of this piece of legislation the details that are required of this particular program, which discourages those from actually using it. So that the CBO would say that if we continue this program, which is not actually attracting any takers, it would cost the Federal Government at least $175 million in failed mortgages, defaulted mortgages. In addition, this is one of the programs that we are talking about mandatory spending, not discretionary, but actually doing something about mandatory spending. And in the terms of the Inspector General, this program has failed. We can do better. And as a government we ought to do better than this poorly planned, poorly executed, underutilized, and very, very expensive failed program. The material previously referred to by Mr. Polis is as follows: An Amendment to H. Res. 150 Offered by Mr.…”