[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 126 (Monday, July 28, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S7566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am aware of and sympathize with families 
and individuals in Utah and around the country who, through no willful 
neglect or bad intentions of their own, are in very difficult 
circumstances as a result of turbulence in the housing market. Others 
in the housing industry who have also acted with prudence and good 
faith have also been caught up in the difficulty. We have had many 
votes on housing legislation over the past several months, and I have 
supported measures that I thought would help improve the current 
situation.
  I also understand that housing is a significant sector that affects 
the broader economy. A stable housing market would go a long way to 
instilling confidence. My expectation is that the housing sector will 
stabilize and I hope that it does so with as little exposure as 
possible to taxpayers.
  Our last vote on the substance of the Foreclosure Prevention Act took 
place on July 11. The bill then went to the House of Representatives, 
and the House made a few changes and one major addition to the bill. It 
added what some have called a bailout for the government sponsored 
enterprises, GSEs.
  Before the addition of the GSE provisions, we had a comprehensive 
bill that was the product of lengthy, bipartisan negotiations. It had 
provisions aimed at correcting some of the current problems, avoiding 
future problems, and providing incentive for positive activity in the 
housing market. Given the bipartisan nature of the bill, it contained 
many provisions that I support, including tax deductions and 
incentives.
  However, this last addition to the housing bill, which we voted on 
for the first time today, combined with my other reservations, was more 
than I was willing to support. The CBO estimates that there is ``a 
greater than 50 percent chance that the government would provide no 
financial assistance to the GSEs over the next 17 months.'' I hope the 
chances are greater than that, but this section of the bill accounts 
for well over half the cost of the bill. It has the potential, perhaps 
slight, of costing well into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
  To touch on a couple other points of concern, this bill will delay 
the allocation of worldwide interest expensing rules that I championed 
in 2004. The delay was included to ``pay'' for other provisions of the 
bill. I am not sure that the tradeoff is static, and the same can be 
said of so many other efforts to offset spending by delaying or 
suspending tax incentives.
  Finally, this bill will help some people who deserve it, but it will 
likely also help many irresponsible lenders, brokers, borrowers that do 
not. The bill now appears to be headed to the President, and he appears 
to be ready to sign the bill, in spite of his own reservations.
  The housing market will recover. Again, I hope that it does so sooner 
than later and at the least cost possible to taxpayers. I expect that 
we will come away from the current situation better able to avoid 
similar problems in the future.

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