[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 17, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          H.R. 1106, THE HELPING FAMILIES SAVE THEIR HOMES ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 17, 2009

  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, the bill before us is far from perfect. 
Though it will help some homeowners who are facing foreclosure, this 
bill requires asking a few additional questions.
  Why would Congress want to pass a bill that uses bankruptcy as the 
first option to resolve only some loans, and not all loans, as opposed 
to invoking the full power of the FDIC and SEC to handle all loans?
  This legislation will ``protect mortgage services from legal 
liability.'' Why would we do this at the same time as we are sending 
individual homeowners to the bankruptcy gallows?
  Why would we pass a bill that eliminates the government's share of 
any appreciation in the home's value at sale?
  Madam Speaker, these are some of the questions for which this bill 
does not provide answers to those critical questions.
  Most of all, this bill continues to reinforce the seriously flawed 
mortgage securitization approach to the U.S. housing market. The 
overarching concentration and securitization of the housing mortgage 
market by Wall Street bond houses and money center banks are continued 
in the bill rather than replaced by an approach that restores prudent 
Main Street lending practices again.
  Our housing finance system is far too concentrated. Its system-wide 
imprudent practices centered in the securitization process, itself, 
have done enormous damage domestically and internationally and have 
ripped neighborhoods and communities apart across our Nation.
  Responsible lending requires that our financial system re-empower the 
local banking, local underwriting and local mortgage markets first. 
This bill merely rewards the wrongdoers by letting them fall in the 
government basket of FHA, FNMA, and Freddie Mac.
  A real reform plan should be the foundation stone that precedes any 
legislation that proposes to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars 
more to the very money center banks and servicing companies that have 
produced the chaos that ails our mortgage lending system today. Reform 
must come first, not last. No matter how well-intentioned any housing 
bill is, there must be a broader policy context in which it is 
advanced.
  In sum, this plan does not do enough to address the fundamental cause 
of the financial crisis--widespread and overuse of concentrated 
securitization practices, mortgage and appraisal fraud, and the seize 
up of credit markets due to improper use of federal instrumentalities 
in attempting to resolve the situation.
  This bill nips at the edges of a very troubled system, picks up some 
of the casualties, and lets the Titanic continue to chug toward some 
iceberg.
  Our citizens deserve full justice, not continuing reliance on the 
very institutions that brought us to this fork in the road.

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