Political Quotes

“We need to pass a bill that will fix housing first. We recognized the problem about a year and a half ago, but Congress has not focused on the housing piece of that and come up with a solution that will work to fix housing. ``Fix Housing First,'' the slogan the Senator came up with, I appreciate the efforts of the Senator from Tennessee and the understanding that he has of this and the ability to pull people together. I thank Senator Ensign for all of the work he has done on a substitute bill. I particularly thank the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, for an idea that he has seen work before and knows will work again and has done the math on it to update it to today. But we have to fix housing first. That is what started the problem, that is what is continuing the problem, that is what has tightened the pocketbooks of Americans. A realtor from Buffalo, WY, was in my office yesterday. He said the banks do have some money, that they had made 50 loans, they were processing 50 loans at the moment. He said, unfortunately, only two of those were for house sales. The rest of them were all refinancing as the interest rates have come down. Even people who can afford to buy a house are not buying a house because they do not know where the bottom is in the housing market.”