[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 6, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H3056-H3057]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           LET'S BE CAUTIOUS WITH MORTGAGE BAIL-OUT PROGRAMS

  (Mr. NEUGEBAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Speaker, before I came to Congress, I had an 
opportunity to serve my constituents in a different way. I was a home 
builder, a land developer, and even a mortgage lender. I know firsthand 
some of the problems that the real estate industry and the housing 
industry is facing today.
  Ninety-four percent of the American homeowners are paying their 
mortgage

[[Page H3057]]

payments on time and in full. Are some people having a hard time making 
these mortgage payments? Of course they are. Can the government help? 
Yes, in some cases. But I urge my colleagues to be very careful here. 
We do not need for the Federal Government to be the piggy bank for 
folks that made poor decisions or to bail out the lenders that made 
loans to people that really didn't have the capacity to pay it back. It 
is not fair to penalize those folks that made good decisions and played 
by the rules by taking their tax money and rewarding those who didn't.
  For many of my constituents, they are having a hard time just making 
their own mortgage payment. What we shouldn't be doing is taking their 
tax money to pay their neighbor's payment.
  Madam Speaker, I encourage folks to be very cautious about these 
bail-out programs.

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