[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 118 (Thursday, July 17, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6884-S6885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S6884]]
                                HOUSING

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, thank you very much.
  We have before the Senate in the next couple of days a number of 
important pieces of legislation, but one of the debates going on right 
now in the Senate and beyond across the country is the response by the 
Senate and by the administration on housing. In particular, we have a 
raging debate about what to do about the two so-called mortgage giants, 
Freddie and Fannie, as we know them by their acronyms.
  There is no question that these two entities play a substantial role 
in what has been happening to our housing market. By one estimate, they 
hold half of the value of all the mortgages in the United States of 
America--trillions and trillions of dollars--by one estimate as much as 
$5 trillion. We have to apply a lot of scrutiny and exercise the kind 
of due diligence as it pertains to the administration's proposal to 
shore up Fannie and Freddie. It is vitally important. However, I think 
the Congress has to be able to do two or three things at once.
  We have to be able, as we are applying the kind of due diligence and 
the kind of review the taxpayers expect us to provide--and we should do 
that. There is a long way to go. We can't just sign off and say the 
Treasury Department and the administration or any other entity can do 
whatever they want and we will just rubberstamp it. We have to make 
sure the taxpayers' interests are protected, but while we are doing 
that, we have to get housing legislation passed.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, not just because of the families in 
Ohio and Pennsylvania and across the country who are suffering from the 
root of our economic trouble, which is one word, ``housing,'' or the 
problems with housing--as he knows, this legislation has been held up. 
There are some in Washington who are using this debate about scrutiny 
of the Fannie and Freddie proposal, scrutiny about taxpayer interests, 
which are legitimate and real, using that debate as a way to slow down 
the bipartisan housing legislation. I think we have to make sure we 
commit ourselves to a path over the next couple of days and do it with 
a sense of urgency about what is happening in America today because no 
matter what we do on due diligence with regard to the mortgage 
companies, if we don't provide relief to families across America on the 
question of housing, we will not be doing our jobs.
  I think the people across this country, just as they hope we do on 
gas prices--they certainly believe that on the price of gas, or any 
other prices rising for them, especially on the question of housing--
expect us to get something done. So far, there are people in this body 
who want to slow things down. So I think we can provide the kind of 
oversight and due diligence for this proposal with the mortgage giants. 
We can provide that oversight but at the same time move forward with 
housing legislation.
  The fact is, for a lot of Americans, this is not some remote, 
theoretical question. Every day in America--every weekday, because the 
courthouses are not open on the weekends--every weekday, by the latest 
estimates, 8,400 to 8,500 enter the nightmare of foreclosure. We can 
debate a lot of theoretical issues, but unless we focus on that central 
reality for families in America, we are going to miss the boat. So all 
of those families every day--8,500 families every day--are entering the 
nightmare of foreclosure.
  I know the Presiding Officer, Senator Brown, Senator Schumer, and I, 
the three of us, a long time ago, way back in the spring of 2007--more 
than a year ago--put on the table the Borrowers Protection Act, which 
was a way to deal with this problem early, to say to mortgage 
originators and mortgage brokers: You are not being regulated. You are 
causing a good bit of this problem, if not most of the problem. We are 
going to regulate your conduct so that if you have a mortgage 
transaction and you are a broker and you are part of that and there is 
a homeowner, a family sitting in front of you, we are going to make 
sure you escrow for taxes and insurance, for example. It is not a 
radical idea, but they were not doing it. We are going to provide more 
scrutiny of the kind of activity that you have as a mortgage broker. We 
are going to make sure if a mortgage broker wants to make money and 
wants to bring families into a transaction that they have more 
disclosure; that they tell that family sitting in front of them more 
information about the mortgage documents, about the interest rate, and 
what this family is signing up for.
  That legislation has been in front of the Senate for far too long 
now. That kind of bipartisan approach to this crisis is what we need 
more of.
  I have worked with Senator Martinez on the other side of the aisle on 
appraiser independence. We have too many appraisers in these high-end 
mortgages that were in some cases committing fraud and in other cases 
not providing enough information. We have to make sure when someone 
does an appraisal, they are truly independent.
  What our legislation called for was having two appraisals to force 
appraisers to be more independent. Senator Specter and I have worked 
together in Pennsylvania to promote a great idea in the city of 
Philadelphia. Sometimes all the great ideas aren't in Washington, as we 
well know.
  A judge in Philadelphia, Judge Darnell Jones, a distinguished jurist 
came up on his own, working with people in the city, and then supported 
by Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia with funding, with a program that says: 
We may not be able to legally force people in the marketplace to do 
certain things, if you have a contract between a lender and a borrower, 
but we can at least say that before a foreclosure moves forward, you 
have to have some mediation, some discussion, some meeting between the 
lender and the borrower. The borrower has to do something. They can't 
just hope for the best. They have to be able to commit themselves to 
paying back the mortgage, and the lender has to give as well.
  These kinds of ideas in the city of Philadelphia and across the 
country should inform what we do here. So Senator Specter and I have 
worked to promote foreclosure mitigation. The Presiding Officer knows 
foreclosure counseling is not just a good thing to do; it is not just a 
couple of hundred million dollars that we have been able to put into 
legislation and become part of our law--and we need more money--but the 
Presiding Officer knows how important that money is to get dollars into 
the hands of people and entities across the country, most of them 
nonprofit organizations that understand not just how to work with the 
borrower, to work with the family when they are signing those 
complicated documents that mean they have to enter into an agreement 
where they have to pay money back over a long period of time. It is 
very complicated. Even if you are sophisticated in finance matters, it 
is pretty complicated.
  This foreclosure counseling money will give dollars to entities 
across the country to work with families, gain the families' trust, and 
then work with the borrowers when they are entering into transactions. 
We have to do more with foreclosure counseling.
  So I think on a whole series of fronts, there is bipartisan work 
being done in the Senate. There are good ideas on the table from 
communities across the country and from people in Washington. We have 
to continue to work together in a bipartisan way. The worst thing we 
could do is stop the train from moving down the track on getting 
housing legislation passed because we are having a debate about how 
much scrutiny or oversight or review there is to a Fannie Mae and 
Freddie Mac proposal, the kind of review we should apply to do it. We 
can do both at the same time.
  Once in a while the Congress can walk and chew gum at the same time. 
This is one of those instances where, with the families out there who 
are suffering under the weight of this housing problem, this subprime 
problem that has been hanging over the country and affecting 
international markets and international transactions right now, it is 
one of those instances where we have to do everything we can to push 
this forward.
  If you are standing in the way of getting housing legislation passed 
and you are using the figleaf or the argument that somehow we have to 
apply more scrutiny to Fannie and Freddie, I don't think you are being 
straight with the American people. We can do both at the same time. We 
can serve the interests of taxpayers on this proposal and

[[Page S6885]]

apply all the scrutiny and due diligence we should, but we also have to 
get something done on housing because the mortgage companies are going 
to do fine no matter what.
  Fannie and Freddie will do just fine, thank you very much. But if we 
don't get housing legislation passed, the people who will suffer, as 
they have already suffered, are families, borrowers, real people out 
there in places such as Ohio and Pennsylvania and across the country.
  So I will yield the floor but just reiterate that I urge people on 
both sides of the aisle to continue to work together, but we cannot 
leave here this summer without dealing with major housing legislation, 
which is already in front of us and which is already bipartisan. We 
can't leave here without doing that.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time remains in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 15 minutes 15 seconds.

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