[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 995-999]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         BIPARTISAN COOPERATION

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have listened with great interest this 
morning. It has been fascinating for me to see a party block access to 
making progress in the Congress and then several days later come and 
complain that progress hasn't been made. That is a Byzantine approach 
to legislating.
  I do agree, however, that we don't want bad habits to exist here. And 
even though I am honored to serve in this place, I have often called 
this the place of 100 bad habits, which would include myself, of 
course. It is hard to get things done in this place, but I am not 
suggesting one side or the other side is all wrong.
  I am reminded of Ogden Nash's poem:

       He drinks because she scolds, he thinks. She scolds because 
     he drinks, she thinks. Neither will admit what is really 
     true: He is a drunk; she is a shrew.

  I understand both sides bear responsibility for difficulty from time 
to time, but let me say this: On this issue of FISA, it strains 
credibility for a party that says: You may not move; we will block you. 
We insist that we get 60 votes on every amendment. Every amendment has 
to have 60 votes, otherwise we filibuster. If that is the case, we 
don't make progress. And I don't think you can say: Well, we are going 
to object to progress, and then we will complain that progress isn't 
made. That makes no sense to me.
  I don't know of anybody in this Chamber who doesn't want the FISA 
amendments to be extended and resolved. Let's do that and get it done. 
Let's have a little cooperation. But cooperation takes two parties, and 
it is long past the time to do that. As I have said, we have had a lot 
of bad habits in this legislation.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, would the Senator entertain a question?
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me ask unanimous consent that my time be extended, 
however, for the minute or so the Senator wishes to inquire.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BOND. I would just ask my good friend if he doesn't agree the 
Intelligence Committee bills have to pass with 60 votes? I believe the 
Protect America Act passed with 60 votes. The leader said in December 
it made sense to have all votes at 60-vote margins, and would he not 
expect that the Senate Intelligence Committee bill, which I support, 
will have to get 60 votes? And if so, does it not make sense to have 60 
votes to pass all amendments?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it certainly does not make sense. In fact, 
exactly the opposite. That is nonsense, to bring a bill to the floor 
and say: Look, regular order would be to bring up amendments. If a 
majority of the Senators agree with them, those amendments are 
approved. But we don't like regular order. Let's decide every amendment 
that shall be brought up shall have to have 60 votes. Why? Because if 
not, they will filibuster every amendment and then complain nothing is 
getting done. No, it does not make sense, I would say to my friend.
  Now, I didn't come to talk about that, but let me talk a moment about 
this issue of the economy. This is a discussion about starting the 
engine, or getting the engine working on this ship of state so that we 
move the country forward. It is about jobs and expanding opportunities 
for the American people because when the economy contracts, people run 
into trouble.
  They are the ones who get laid off, the folks who are working in 
plants and working at the bottom for minimum wage. They are the ones 
who lose ground during an economic contraction.
  Well, it used to be on the old automobiles, when you started an 
engine, you had to crank it. And then we went from a crank to a 
starter, so you push a button or turn a key. Well, some people think 
our economy is simple as that. It is not, of course. A large component 
of our economy is people's confidence. If they are confident in the 
future, they do the things that represent that confidence--they make 
that purchase, they buy a washer and dryer if they need it, they buy a 
car, they take a trip. In doing so, because they are confident about 
the future, they expand the economy. If they lack confidence in the 
future, they do exactly the opposite--they defer the purchase of that 
piece of equipment for their home, they defer the purchase of the car, 
they defer the trip--and the economy contracts.
  We have a problem with this economy for a lot of reasons. I have 
described some of them on the floor of the Senate recently. But the 
Federal Reserve Board recognized that problem and took a very bold 
action--three-quarters of a percent interest rate cut--and likely will 
do more in the next couple of days. The impression is that we also 
should do something called a stimulus package; that is, stimulus with 
respect to fiscal policy. I do not object to that. In fact, I think we 
probably have to do that because a whole lot of what is going on in the 
market these days is about psychology.
  I have indicated this before. I have called the field of economics 
psychology pumped up by helium. I think that is a pretty adequate 
description of what it is. People think it is science. It is not. It is 
a circumstance in which we know very little about the way this economy 
works. We do have more stabilizers in the economy than we did decades 
ago, so we have been able to even out a bit some of the recessions and 
the downturns. All of that has been helpful. We may be in a recession 
now. No one knows. We probably will not know that until we see it in 
the rearview mirror. But if we do a stimulus package on fiscal policy--
and I think

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that is a reasonable thing to do--I do not think it is going to have a 
significant impact on the economy. Suggesting 1 percent of our GDP as a 
stimulus--it is not going to have a dramatic impact. But 
psychologically, I think we must do a stimulus.
  Let me say that I do think what the Finance Committee chairman is 
talking about makes a lot of sense. If you are going to do a stimulus 
package and you are going to provide some kind of rebate, make sure you 
include senior citizens, many of whom are living on lower incomes. They 
are the ones who are going to spend it. They are the ones who are going 
to contribute to additional purchasing power in the economy. So you 
should not leave out the millions of senior citizens if you are going 
to do a stimulus package. I support including senior citizens in that 
stimulus package.
  You know, the President and a couple of my colleagues just said: 
Well, you cannot change it. The House did it. The President wants it. 
You cannot change it. They come here, and they always suggest that this 
is like a loose thread on a cheap sweater: You pull the head of the 
thread, and the arms fall off. That is not the case at all.
  The House did its version of a stimulus package. We should do ours. 
We have some better ideas. But we ought to get it done quickly, and we 
ought to resolve it with the House and send it to the President. 
Extending unemployment benefits is something we always do in an 
economic downturn, and we should do it again, in my judgment.
  But let me say that in a stimulus package that is brought to the 
floor of the Senate that does not have a cap on who is going to get the 
rebates makes no sense at all. And there is talk about that, that we 
will get a stimulus package and have no cap on the rebate. We are going 
to send Bill Gates a $500 check to see if we can stimulate the economy 
a little bit. That makes no sense. You have to have a cap. This ought 
to go to middle income and lower income families. They are ones who 
will spend it and the ones who will be able to give a jump-start to 
this economy, to the extent the stimulus package actually does that. 
But as I said, psychologically I think we have a responsibility to use 
fiscal policy to do something in this general direction.
  Now, the Senator from Connecticut just came to the floor, and he has 
been working on something I am very interested in; that is, 
infrastructure investment. If we just do a short-term stimulus of 1 
percent of the economy and that is all, we are not going to give this 
economy the kind of boost or give the investment to this country that 
it needs. We need a second step, and the second step ought to be the 
big step, and we ought to take a look at what is going on in the 
infrastructure of this country.
  My colleague has a bill, the Dodd-Hagel bill, that I think makes a 
lot of sense. We had a meeting on that on Friday, a rather lengthy 
meeting with a lot of people. Here is the situation.
  Infrastructure investment is job creating. When you invest in 
infrastructure, you create jobs and you create a better country. Fly 
into Bagram Air Base and then get in a vehicle, drive to Kabul, take a 
look at the road, and ask yourself about infrastructure in a country 
such as Afghanistan. Fly into Tegucigalpa and then drive in a car to 
Juticalpa in Honduras, take a look at the road, and ask yourself about 
infrastructure investment. Or go to Haiti and land at Port-au-Prince, 
travel across the island to Jacmel, and consider for a moment what 
infrastructure means to a country. The fact is, you fly over Nicaragua 
and look down, and you do not see many roads because they do not have 
much of an infrastructure.
  Then fly from any of those countries back to our country, come into 
an airport, get in a vehicle and drive down the road, and then think 
about infrastructure and what we have built over a long period of time 
that makes us proud of this country and allows this country to expand 
and grow and create opportunity. Then take a look at what has happened 
recently. This country stopped investing in infrastructure in any 
significant way. Our infrastructure is crumbling, in desperate 
disrepair. Big bridges fall down, and highways are crumbling. The fact 
is, we have schools that are in shameful condition in this country, 
water programs that are desperately needed for water treatment that are 
waiting for money to do it.
  Now, when the Federal Government buys this highlighter pen for me--at 
my office, we have a supply of highlighter pens--this is expensed. Now, 
anybody who takes accounting understands you expense something on day 
one. But the fact is, when we spend $200 million building a piece of 
highway or invest $500 million in an airport, we expense that as well. 
No other enterprise that I am aware of in this country--none--will do 
what the Federal Government does and say: When you spend on 
infrastructure something that will last 50 and 100 years for this 
country, you have to expense it on the first day. We need a capital 
budget. We need an infrastructure investment bank. We need a whole 
series of things that represents a second step so that we can in the 
longer term invest in and expand opportunities in this country through 
infrastructure investment.
  It is about jobs; it is about having pride in your country; it is 
about investing in your country in the kinds of things that allow 
economic progress. I don't want people to come out here and say: Let's 
do this stimulus and, boy, that will fix things. This is putting a 
little patch on something here; it is not going to fix things. It is 
something we should do, but if we do not do something much bolder, do 
something with much greater consequence in the longer term, that 
invests in this country's future, we will have missed a very 
substantial opportunity.
  In the New York Times this morning, there is an op-ed piece by Bob 
Herbert that talks about the catastrophe in New Orleans. He talks about 
the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the underground steam pipe in 
midtown Manhattan that blows up, the manhole cover that is blown out of 
the streets here in Washington, DC. He talks about South Carolina, 
where there is a long stretch of grievously neglected rural schools 
that has been dubbed ``the corridor of shame.'' You know, I have been 
in those kinds of schools. I have been in schools where kids were going 
to school in parts of the building that were condemned that were 100 
years old, where sewer gas was coming up back through some of the rooms 
and they could no longer use those rooms. We have all seen those 
things. This country has to do better. And we can do better if we put 
together the kinds of infrastructure investment banks and the capital 
budget, and advance this country's interests by building this country.
  I want to make one final point. We were told this morning that the 
President is going to ask for another $70 billion for Iraq and 
Afghanistan. That is on top of the $196 billion he asked for last year 
in this fiscal year that we are in now. That is $16 billion a month, $4 
billion a week. He wants another $70 billion. That will take us well 
over two-thirds of a trillion dollars. I ask the question: Is it not 
time we started investing some at home? It is not time we started 
taking care of things here at home? The sky is the limit for these 
kinds of investments.
  This morning, my colleagues were talking about fiscal responsibility. 
Not one penny of the war costs has been paid for. The President has 
insisted that we send soldiers to war and we spend this money and 
charge it to future generations. They will fight the war and come back 
and inherit this debt. That is not fiscally responsible either. How 
about suggesting there is a priority here at home for investing in this 
country, expanding opportunity in this country, and taking care of 
things that have been too long neglected?
  So I wanted to say that in the context of this discussion we will 
have about the stimulus program. It is important, but what is much more 
important is for ourselves to have a longer view of investing in this 
country and expanding opportunity in this country by making this the 
kind of place we are proud of.
  The folks who came before us did that. They had some real vision. 
Dwight Eisenhower said: Let's build an interstate from coast to coast. 
That

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would not happen under some of the folks who exist in this Chamber 
these days. It just would not. But what a boon to this country, to 
connect America with interstate highways. So we can do a lot better, 
and must if we are interested in the long-term well-being of this 
country.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank my colleague, 
Senator Dorgan, for his statement this morning. I wish to follow with 
very similar remarks. He and I have been good friends for a long time 
and have worked together on a lot of issues over the years. I just want 
to underscore what he said this morning about the importance of the 
stimulus package and the importance of additional ideas that will allow 
us to get moving again.
  I am grateful to hear about the article this morning that was very 
gracious in talking about the bill that Senator Chuck Hagel and I have 
worked on, along with others, including former Senators Warren Rudman 
and Bob Kerrey, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 
John Hamry, Felix Rohatyn, Bernard Schwartz and other leaders. I am 
delighted that the Chamber of Commerce as well as major labor unions 
have endorsed this bill which we spent 2\1/2\ years putting together, 
including spending a lot of time with people in the investment 
community about ways in which we can attract private capital to public 
infrastructure. So I appreciate immensely Senator Dorgan hosting the 
meeting last Friday that brought a lot of these people together.
  Our plan here, I say to him, is to talk with our leaders, the 
Democratic leader as well as, I hope, Senator McConnell, the Republican 
leader. This ought to be a major issue. If we can bring the Chamber of 
Commerce and organized labor together around a bill, this is a vehicle 
which ought to deserve the attention of this body.
  I know there is a growing interest in the House as well about it for 
all of the reasons Senator Dorgan has mentioned. The economic 
implications are huge, and the necessity grows by the hour. But it even 
goes beyond economic terms because there is symbolism in a nation 
building and working.
  In talking to Bob Herbert yesterday, I mentioned that even during the 
Civil War, President Lincoln insisted that the work on the Capitol, the 
very building which we are in here this morning, would continue; that 
it was important, despite that there were obvious demands to provide 
the resources to prevail in the great conflict between North and South, 
that the country see that this project, to build a national capitol 
representing the entire country, would go forward. Obviously, there 
were jobs that were important in that construction. But more important 
than the jobs, even, was the symbolism of a nation at work.
  So I am looking forward to the opportunity to take this idea of a 
major infrastructure proposal and hopefully attract some broad-based 
attention to it.
  My colleague Ron Wyden from Oregon has a proposal as well. We are 
hoping to bring them together. He has a little different perspective 
but one that I think can be added to our proposal.
  I wish to focus my talk this morning about the stimulus package and 
economic issues. I know the FISA bill is going to come up again. I have 
some strong feelings, as my colleagues know, about the retroactive 
immunity in that bill. But I was stunned last evening as I sat and 
listened to the State of the Union. I have been to a lot of them over 
the years. Last night, when the Presiding Officer and I walked he asked 
me how many. When I said the number, it stunned me in a way, how many I 
have been involved in. I was elected to the House in 1974 and went to 
my first one in January of 1975, with Gerald Ford giving his State of 
the Union. I have been to every one since. I have not missed one over 
the last three decades.
  There have been some great ones and others less than great. Last 
evening, put aside whether you like the rhetoric or not, what surprised 
me is that here we are in a nation where, by everyone's estimation, we 
are either in a recession or about to enter one, we have economic data 
that indicate this country is in deeper trouble economically than we 
have been in in years, and there was hardly any reference to our 
economic problems whatsoever other than a paragraph or so about a 
stimulus package.
  So the elephant in the room, if you do not mind using that animal 
analogy, the elephant in the room in the State of the Union was, of 
course, the state of the union is in tough shape economically. We are 
in desperate shape in many ways.
  What is beyond ironic is that we would have a President of the United 
States talking about the condition of our union, and here is a major 
problem that is the subject of headlines every day across the Nation, 
and there are hardly any references to it at all. So we were gathered 
last evening to talk about where we are and what we need to do in the 
coming days, and there is hardly a passing reference to the economic 
condition our country is in.
  The President called this a period of ``economic uncertainty.'' I 
think those were the words he used. While I agree we are certainly in 
an uncertain period, to put it mildly, what we know with some certainty 
is that the current economic situation is more than merely a slowdown 
or a downturn; it is even more than a mere recession or near recession. 
Instead, I think it is a crisis of confidence among consumers and 
investors. Consumers are fearful of borrowing and spending, investors 
are fearful of lending. Financial transactions which generate new 
businesses and new jobs are shrinking in number and size by the hour in 
this country.
  The incoming economic data shows how serious this problem is. 
Yesterday the Commerce Department reported that the sale of new homes 
fell again in December, reaching a 12-year low. Retail sales were down 
and unemployment was up significantly in December. Credit card 
delinquencies are on the rise, as consumers find themselves 
increasingly unable to tap the equity in their homes to help pay down 
credit card and other bills. Lastly, inflation increased by 4.1 percent 
last year, the largest increase in 17 years. This is what the President 
called a period of ``economic uncertainty.''
  You have record numbers and statistics pointing to the difficulty our 
Nation is in economically, and we hardly heard any mention of it at all 
last night. The inflation that we are experiencing, is driven mainly by 
the rising cost of energy--oil is at $100 a barrel--and there was 
hardly a reference to that last evening. It costs $100 for a barrel of 
oil, and I do not recall a word being spoken, except about energy 
independence and to try to get there.
  Food and health care costs have gone up as well. Industrial 
production is falling. And we have been hemorrhaging jobs in the 
manufacturing sector. Our economy is clearly facing more than 
uncertainty; it is facing significant challenges to our Nation's future 
economic growth and prosperity.
  The most important step we could take right now is, of course, to act 
to restore consumer and investor confidence. Unlike past recessions and 
slowdowns, the epicenter of this economic crisis is the housing crisis; 
and the epicenter of the housing crisis is the foreclosure crisis. 
Housing starts are at their lowest level in more than a quarter of a 
century. Home prices declined last year nationwide by 6 percent, and 
are expected to decline again this year. This would be the first time 
since the Great Depression that the country will have had two 
consecutive years where home prices have dropped and the President 
calls this a period of ``economic uncertainty.''
  This crisis stems above all from the virtual collapse, as I said a 
moment ago, of the housing market. That collapse was triggered by what 
Secretary Paulson has rightly and properly called--and I commend him 
for it--``bad lending practices.'' Those are his words, not mine. These 
are lending practices that no sensible banker would ever engage in. 
Reckless, careless, and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage 
lending industry

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essentially allowed loans to be made that they knew hard-working, law-
abiding borrowers would never, ever be able to repay when the fully 
indexed price kicked in. And they engaged in practices that the Federal 
Reserve and the Bush administration did absolutely nothing to 
effectively stop.
  As a result, foreclosures are at record levels, the value of people's 
homes is declining, and the tax base for State and local governments is 
shrinking.
  A year ago, I chaired the first Housing hearing in the Congress on 
the subject of predatory lending. I talked then about the possibility 
that more than 2 million Americans would lose their homes as a result 
of such lending practices. I know there were those who scoffed when I 
mentioned the number of 2 million almost a year ago, but no one is 
scoffing now. Today, foreclosure rates are at record levels. Estimates 
are that foreclosures will continue to climb for most of this year, dip 
briefly, and then begin to rise again when interest rate resets kick 
in.
  The catalyst of the current economic crisis is, as I said a moment 
ago, the housing crisis. And the face of the housing crisis is the 
foreclosure crisis. Therefore, in my view, any short-term stimulus 
package should include measures that will address the causes and 
symptoms of the foreclosure crisis head on, as well as trying to 
provide some immediate relief for those who are dealing directly with 
this problem.
  I want to indicate at the outset I am very supportive of the work 
done by Speaker Pelosi in the House along with John Boehner, the 
Republican leader, and other Members over there who have worked on 
this. I thank them for what they have done to formulate outlines of a 
stimulus package that the administration could support. Senator Baucus, 
my good friend from Montana and the chairman of the Finance Committee, 
Senator Harkin, Senator Kennedy and others have expressed some 
important views regarding unemployment insurance, food stamps, low-
income energy assistance, and other important programs.
  We may not accommodate all of those priority programs, but they bring 
up a good point; and that is, historically you want to make sure 
resources get into the hands of the people who are feeling the pinch. 
For people who still have choices, there may be less than the desired 
impact by providing a tax break for people in that category, as opposed 
to those who are at the low-income levels, who are tremendously 
strapped, that they are provided some relief. So I am confident when 
the Senate works its will, there will be some additions to the stimulus 
package, I think, in the unemployment area, certainly, and possibly in 
low-income energy assistance, and in some food stamp areas as well.
  In addition to the problems in our housing market, we also have 
tremendous challenges and opportunities with respect to our Nation's 
aging infrastructure.
  In the short term we need to include funding for States and 
localities to start projects that are already ready to go, including 
existing highway and transit maintenance projects and other 
infrastructure projects that can be done quickly. There are a long list 
of highway and transit projects that are important to creating jobs 
today and to strengthening our Nation's economic future. These projects 
will boost employment in the construction and manufacturing sectors, 
which are those that have been hardest hit in the recent economic 
downturn. I intend to work for and support an immediate investment in 
transit, highway and other infrastructure projects.
  In the long term we need to renew and reinvent our infrastructure. 
This is no small task, but it is critically important to putting people 
to work and modernizing the economy for future generations. As I said, 
I have worked with my colleague, Senator Hagel, in introducing 
legislation to authorize a National Infrastructure Bank to address some 
of these challenges, and I look forward to working with him and others 
in this Chamber to do that.
  I do not want to overload the stimulus and I realize it is important 
we act quickly or the value of the package gets lost. Even if it does 
not include all the things I wish to see in it, it is important we move 
expeditiously or the value of the timing of it, I think, could be lost 
on us altogether. It is important we consider some of those suggestions 
that are being made on a temporary basis. I look forward to working 
with our colleagues to try to add some additions to the stimulus 
package. But, hopefully, we can do it in a timely fashion.
  Specifically, with respect to housing, because this is an area where, 
again, if we are just dealing with people's problems and not the 
problem that caused the problems, then I think we are missing a 
critical point. I want to pick up on some of the things Byron Dorgan 
talked about a moment ago. Let me add that I am pleased to note there 
were elements in the proposed House package that address the housing 
market issues; namely, a temporary increase in the conforming loan 
limits for the GSEs, and also for the FHA program.
  I think we ought to be talking about jumbo loans in this area. One of 
the concerns in the current crisis is that of market liquidity. If you 
want to get liquidity into this market, then you have to have loan 
limits that can reach amounts that truly make a difference, even if for 
only 12 months.
  So my hope is the administration--however this will work--will set 
those loan limits to create the desired impact that we are trying to 
reach, and that is, injecting liquidity into the housing market. 
Increasing these loan limits will help restore confidence and liquidity 
into the housing market, where interest rates have skyrocketed for 
nonconforming loans due to the current problems. These steps will also 
allow millions of middle-class Americans who live in areas of the 
country where the value of an average house is far above the existing 
conforming loan limits to participate and reap the benefits from having 
a conforming loan. So I would urge these additional loan limits to deal 
with the problems in the jumbo loan market, at least for a year, be 
considered.
  I have supported both of these measures and have also worked very 
closely with my ranking member on the Banking Committee, Senator 
Shelby, to draft and pass a more broad FHA modernization bill. That 
legislation passed this body 93 to 1. We spent a lot of time drafting 
that bill, and getting strong bipartisan support for it back at the end 
of last year. I want to acknowledge the assistance of the majority 
leader, Senator Reid, and Senator Schumer of New York who were very 
helpful in getting that legislation adopted on the floor with the kind 
of overwhelming numbers I mentioned a moment ago.
  I remain dedicated to making this happen. I have spoken with Chairman 
Barney Frank of the House as late as last evening. We had breakfast 
together a week ago to talk about how this bill can get done as part of 
this stimulus package. These are good and needed steps, but we must, I 
think, go farther. I think this is where Senator Dorgan's remarks come 
in. If we limit it to a short-term stimulus package, and assume that is 
going to achieve the desired results, I think you are missing the point 
and that explains why we have had some negative reaction to the short-
term program.
  It has to be followed on--whether you call it a second or third 
tranche or effort here--but we need to follow the short-term effort 
with some longer term decisions and proposals that can go a long way to 
restoring that sense of confidence and optimism beyond the short-term 
injection of confidence that is needed if we are going to see our 
economy improve and opportunities improve in this century.
  The work of the President and the Congress to right our Nation's 
economic ship will not end with the enactment of a stimulus package. On 
the contrary, it will have barely begun.
  There are other important measures we can and should take to address 
the problems in the housing market, and I want to briefly address two 
of them, if I can.
  In the short term, we need to increase funding for the community 
development block grant, CDBG, program. The CDBG program has been a 
very successful program all across the

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country for many years, and in my view, it can do an awful lot to 
assist in foreclosure mitigation. It is a tried and true program. We 
should use it to direct, I would suggest, some $10 billion to local 
governments to renovate and resell the foreclosed and abandoned homes 
that are decimating many communities.
  The mayor of Bridgeport, CT, was in my office last week. He was a 
newly elected mayor last fall. He told me in the city of Bridgeport--
which is a city of a little less than 100,000--he is looking at 6,000 
foreclosed homes in his city. That is 6,000 homes in a city of less 
than 100,000 residents. Needless to say, even for those homes that are 
current with their mortgage and in no danger of foreclosure, the value 
of those homes, and every home, in that city will be adversely 
affected. Even if there were only 1,000 foreclosed homes it would be a 
huge number. Imagine if it is six times that in one city in my State, 
which is the most affluent State in many ways in the country, what it 
must be like in many other cities throughout my State and the country 
as a whole.
  I do not know the numbers in Hartford and Waterbury and other cities, 
and smaller cities, but 6,000 foreclosures in Bridgeport is a huge 
number. These are not speculator homes. This is not Las Vegas or 
Florida or Arizona. These are single-family homes that people are 
living in, and the idea that 6,000 people and families in that city 
would be adversely affected ought to cause all of us great pause to ask 
what can we do creatively and imaginatively to help out.
  The CDBG program has been very useful over the years in providing 
mayors and county supervisors and others across the country some help 
in this area. I think it would be a smart short-term effort.
  Foreclosed and abandoned homes are devastating--again, I am preaching 
to the choir as we all know this--to communities around the country. 
They lead to a cycle of disinvestment and crime in neighborhoods. All 
of the commensurate problems that emerge with abandoned properties 
hardly need to be articulated again this morning. We all understand it. 
The property values and property tax bases all suffer, thereby leading 
to service cuts and further disinvestment. So CDBG money could provide, 
I think, some very valuable resources for these communities. Again, we 
are talking about $10 billion. It is not insignificant, but if we think 
about the potential good it could do, I think it would be a worthwhile 
investment.
  Let me mention another idea. I want to thank the American Enterprise 
Institute and the Center for American Progress that wrote an op-ed 
piece on this idea. It is an idea that comes out of both conservative 
and liberal to moderate think tanks about what to do about foreclosed 
properties, where you have people living in their homes. This is about 
a need for a temporary apparatus to mitigate foreclosures.
  I am working with a proposal to create what is called the 
Homeownership Preservation Corporation, which was tried actually in the 
1930s and worked rather well under similar circumstances. Very 
basically, this proposal would allow for the purchase of very 
distressed mortgages either in default or about to go in default. These 
are single-family homes with people living in them. Again, it is not 
housing speculators that we are talking about here.
  What you have already going on is, there are people actually going 
out buying some of these loans in the hopes they will restore it and 
sell it at some point down the road. The Homeownership Preservation 
Corporation idea would allow us, in effect, to form a corporation to do 
this: Buy them at discounted rates, so the lender gets a haircut, but 
there is still someone paying the note. You get a fixed rate deal, so 
the homeowner stays in it under terms they can afford to stay in, so 
you do not have your neighborhoods deteriorating. If it works as well 
as it could work, I think you actually have a program that has little 
or no cost to it. What you have done is stabilized these neighborhoods 
and allowed people to stay in their homes. While everyone suffers to 
some degree, it also allows us to preserve people's ability to remain 
in these neighborhoods, remain in their homes.
  As I said, this was done during the Great Depression very 
successfully back a number of years ago, at little or no cost to the 
Government. Under this concept, no one gets bailed out. Everyone shares 
in the pain of the housing bust. But at the same time, a market-based 
mechanism is established that can restore confidence to lenders and 
investors, and give innocent homeowners a chance to save their homes.
  In the longer term and this is the last point I want to make, we need 
to end predatory lending practices. I introduced a bill in the fall 
that will crack down on these practices. Again, there will be ideas 
that our colleagues will bring to this debate. I do not claim we have 
captured all the wisdom in this area. But clearly we want to send a 
message that some of these practices cannot go on any longer. My hope 
is we will get some strong support again from across the political 
divides in the country. Fifteen of our colleagues have already 
cosponsored the bill, and others are welcome to do the same.
  In addition to the problems in our housing market, we also have 
tremendous challenges and opportunities with respect to our Nation's 
aging infrastructure.
  Again, I thank the Chamber of Commerce and I thank the labor unions 
who are supporting my bill. I thank Byron Dorgan, people such as Felix 
Rohatyn, Bernard Schwartz, CSIS, and others for spending the last 2\1/
2\ years with Warren Rudman, Chuck Hagel, myself, and Bob Kerrey in 
putting together this proposal of an infrastructure bank.
  Again, the estimates are that we need $1.5 trillion just to bring our 
infrastructure up to current levels. Our infrastructure is declining 
and deteriorating literally as we speak. The definition of 
infrastructure has changed as well. It is not just the physical 
infrastructure but human infrastructure as well. The FAA system is in 
deep need of modernization, or we are going to face some tragedies if 
we don't understand how important that piece is. There are a wide 
variety of issues that need to be addressed with infrastructure. 
Throughout history I think we have all understood the value, 
economically, to our country that has come from investing in 
infrastructure. Bob Herbert's article this morning very generously 
talks about the bill Chuck Hagel and I have introduced. He talks 
historically about the great canal systems in the Midwest that opened 
up opportunities for New York, and obviously, the interstate highway 
system under the Eisenhower administration, and the incredible economic 
expansion that occurred as a result of those investments. The rural 
electrification programs that brought electrification to rural areas in 
the country made a huge difference to people and to our nation.
  So we invite our colleagues to look at these ideas on how we can 
expand our efforts to meet our infrastructure needs. It really is an 
issue that demands the attention of this body. So I offer that idea as 
well.
  In conclusion, I think the package the President and House leaders 
have laid out is a good one. I think it can be expanded on, and it 
addresses some of the critical areas. More needs to be done. If we 
don't follow up on the stimulus package with some of these other ideas, 
I think we will have missed a significant not only opportunity, but I 
think an important moment in our history to restore that confidence and 
optimism people are looking for.
  I yield the floor.

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