[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 13198]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             HOUSING CRISIS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, what is the business now?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 
3221.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are in the splendor of this beautiful 
Senate Chamber. We have all had a good night's rest. But around America 
today, there are people in the West who are just awakening and people 
in the East have been awake for a while. But a lot of those people have 
had bad nights; they are in danger of losing their homes. They don't 
know what to do. They realize other homes have gone to foreclosure and 
the neighborhood is going down. They can see it, and it has put a pall 
over the economic viability of our country. That is what this 
legislation is all about.
  Those people will benefit from what was done in the Senate yesterday, 
and we will, I believe, sometime early next week, pass this bill. It is 
going to be a tremendous help to those people around America who are 
suffering as a result of this housing crisis, and they are suffering.
  Sometimes we don't recognize what we need to do and what we have 
done. I feel it is extremely important to spread on the record--I have 
tried to do this the last few days--that the work done by the chairman 
of the committee, Senator Dodd, the ranking member, Senator Shelby, is 
exemplary work, bipartisan work. Recognizing the slim majority we 
Democrats have in the Senate, 51 to 49, anything we do is going to be 
close, people are going to have to give up some of their ideas as to a 
perfect world and recognize that sometimes we have to compromise. That 
is what legislation is all about.
  I admire and appreciate the work that was done by the entire Senate 
yesterday.

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