Immediate Financial Assistance for America's Seniors Act of 2008

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman, Mr. Rangel; and to Mr. Kanjorski; the whole team; and our most forthright and determined Speaker and this bipartisan leadership that has responded to the pain and the hurt of so many Americans.

Some would ask the question why are we moving so fast and why are we investing in people who are those who would receive dollars who happen to be low income. Because people are hurting. So I'm glad that we have these values that have created this vehicle to help America and that we are including help and rebates for the elderly. We are including moneys for 35 million families who work but yet make too little to pay income tax in the way that you think of them paying, but they do pay taxes. They will get a rebate. Disabled veterans will get a rebate.

But I look forward to the time when we can extend the unemployment, we can expand food stamps and Medicaid only because people are hurting. Why are they hurting? Because we are spending $120 billion in Iraq. For the gentleman who just spoke, if we stop doing that, we will be able to provide for the engine of the economy.

Why do we need it? Because in this budget right here that the President has offered, $39 million will be taken away in social services block grants from Texans and millions of dollars for the rest of Americans. Why are we hurting? Because $47 million will be taken away from Texans as it relates to community block grants. And 200 communities will be impacted. More people hurting.

This is the right direction. This economic stimulus package is quick. It gives back to families. It gives back to hardworking families. It gives back to moderate- and low-income families. And it says that Warren Buffet is right. Give money to hardworking Americans so that they can make a difference. Give money to invest in communities so we can build up the economic economy.

And, lastly, let me say thank you so very much for the increase in the FHA loans of $729,000.

People are hurting, and we need to be able to provide for those people who are hurting. A moratorium on foreclosures is necessary. Support the economic stimulus.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Senate Amendments to the Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act. I would like to thank Speaker Pelosi for her leadership on this issue, as well as my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked together to overcome partisan divisions to work together to stimulate our national economy. This legislation will inject over $106 billion into the economy in 2008, over 2/3 of which will come in the form of tax rebate checks, given directly to individuals and families. I also want to thank the Senate for their amendments which extend the stimulus rebate checks to 250,000 disabled veterans and at least 20 million additional American seniors living on Social Security.

However, while I support this legislation, I would like to express my concern about some of this bill's omissions. requested and had hoped that this legislation would include language declaring that it is the sense of Congress that a moratorium of up to 90 days should be declared on all home foreclosures, and that it is the sense of Congress that the financial industry should allow for the reconstruction and reconfiguration of the mortgage loan market.

Madam Speaker, I would have liked to see the following language included in the final legislation, agreed on by both Houses and signed into law by the President:

(i) It is the sense of Congress that a moratorium of up to 90 days should be declared on all home foreclosures.

(ii) It is the sense of Congress that the financial industry should allow for the reconstruction and reconfiguration of the mortgage loan market.

It was my sincere hope, shared by many economists, that a temporary economic adjustment period including a cap on adjustable mortgage rates would provide relief for millions of Americans, and that this added time would give them time to look for other resources. By delaying foreclosure, Congress would have declared that millions of Americans deserve to make their payments, or to get their loans restructured before they lose their homes. Those who can keep paying would continue putting money back into our economy. Madam Speaker, we must act now to prevent what could be a disaster for millions of Americans.

There are a number of additional proposals that I would have liked to see included in the final Economic Stimulus package. I believe it should have included a summer job program, aimed at helping our nation's youth gain the crucial work experience and job skills that will allow them to be competitive in today's increasingly difficult employment market. By working to Provide Americans with the skills they need to successfully secure and keep employment, we can not only help both adults and youth to develop their careers and to support themselves and their families, but we can bolster the whole economy by combating poverty and unemployment.

I would also like to see the extension and expansion of several existent programs which are already doing important work toward helping Americans such as unemployment benefits. Under the strain of current financial circumstances, I believe that we must bolster these important programs, especially for hard working Americans who have lost their jobs. Madam Speaker, I call for the expansion of food stamps and Medicaid programs, and for the extension of unemployment benefits.

Given the current economic climate, I believe that is our responsibility, as the leaders of our nation, to do all in our power to ensure that the most vulnerable populations are protected. That is why I am particularly pleased to support the Senate amendments extending benefits to disabled veterans who risked their lives to protect the freedoms we cherish and seniors who spent decades of their lives contributing to our economy.

Madam Speaker, now is the time for innovative leadership and concerted action. Recent data shows economic growth is slowing, and many economic analysts predict a 50% chance of recession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rose from 4.7% to 5.0% in November 2007 alone. This data, coupled with a struggling housing market and overall slowing economic growth, has caused a ``credit crunch'' that has reduced available funding and has caused rising prices for housing and food.

Over the past year, we have seen a crisis in subprime mortgage lending, which has threatened the stability of the housing market and the livelihoods of large numbers of Americans. During the third quarter of 2007, the nation's home foreclosures doubled from the previous year. This Democratic Congress is committed to strengthening the housing market and stabilizing the economy, and we have passed important legislation to address this crisis.

Because of the lack of regulation by the federal government, many housing loans were accompanied by fraud, predatory lending, inadequate information and other failures of responsible marketing. With exceptionally high (and rising) foreclosure rates across the country, homeowners all over America are losing their homes. Homeowners are surprised to find out that their monthly payments are spiking and they are struggling to make these increasingly high payments.

The sub-prime mortgage crisis has impacted families and communities across the country. Home foreclosure filings rose to 1.2 million in 2006--a 42 percent jump--due to rising mortgage bills and a slowing housing market. Nationally, as many as 2.4 million sub-prime borrowers have either lost their homes or could lose them in the next few years.

In my home state of Texas, citizens are feeling the impact of the looming financial crisis. In November 2007 alone, there were 11,599 foreclosure filings in Texas. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, in Harris County alone 11,944 homes were lost from 2005-2006 through foreclosure on sub prime loans. During the same time period, the average home decreased $1,355 in total value.

Madam Speaker, I firmly believe that this agreement should include a moratorium on foreclosures of at least 90 days on owner-occupied homes with subprime mortgages. Any agreement should also include a rate freeze on adjustable mortgages of at least five years or until the loan is converted into a fixed-rate mortgage. The freeze on foreclosures would give the housing market time to stabilize and homeowners time to build equity. It is critical that we address this crisis. The Bush administration and the mortgage industry must reach an agreement that matches the scale of the problem. The U.S. Treasury Department has been pushing the mortgage industry to agree to temporarily freeze interest rates for some borrowers who took out loans with low teaser rates that will soon be resetting much higher.

Madam Speaker, it is imperative that we address the serious underlying housing issues faced by our nation. 17 million households, or one in seven, spend more than 50% of their income on housing. On any given night, approximately 750,000 men, women, and children are homeless. Constructing more affordable housing is necessary to help families who have lost their homes in the subprime mortgage crisis or due to a family financial crisis, such as illness or job loss. In my home district in Houston, homelessness remains a significant problem. Houston's homeless population increased to approximately 14,000 in 2005, before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and hurricane evacuees remaining in the Houston area could result in the homeless population increasing by some 23,000. Approximately 28% of homeless Americans are veterans.

In August, I, in coordination with the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, hosted a workshop on the introductory concepts and considerations in applying for Housing Tax Credits in Texas. This workshop was designed to create new incentives for developers to expand business opportunities in housing development, as well as to generate a significant increase in the availability of low-income and affordable housing for the residents of Houston and Harris County. I believe that an increase in affordable housing and job opportunities will help reduce the high rates of homelessness among Houston residents.

Madam Speaker, today's economic stimulus legislation will make important strides towards helping hardworking Americans who are struggling with the high costs of gas, health care, and groceries. By putting several hundred dollars directly into the hands of over 130 million American families, this legislation will make important strides toward invigorating our economy, giving money to those who will quickly spend it, reinvesting this money in the American economy.

This bill provides broad-based relief for individuals and families, valued at approximately $115 billion over 10 years. The packages include tax cuts for 130 million families, providing up to $600 per individual, $1,200 per married couple, and an additional $300 per child. On top of these recovery rebate checks, which could be sent as early as mid-May, this legislation will provide unprecedented tax relief for working families, with $32 billion in tax relief for 35 million families who work but make too little to pay income taxes, who would therefore otherwise not be included in this recovery effort. It is targeted to reach those who need the relief the most: of these 35 million working families, over 19 million are families with children. I support provisions in this legislation providing tax relief to middle- income Americans, as well as those aspiring to the middle class, leaving out the wealthiest taxpayers. Nearly $50 billion of the rebate will go to those making less than $50,000.

Madam Speaker, family incomes and home prices are down, even as the costs of health care, energy, food, and education are on the rise. Combined with the jump in mortgage foreclosures, the American economy is struggling, with American families falling behind on their bills and consumer confidence hitting a five year low.

This bill also contains some provisions to help families avoid foreclosure. It increases affordable refinancing opportunities and liquidity in the housing market, increasing the Federal Housing Administration loan limits to $729,750 for 2008. This will expand affordable mortgage loan opportunities for families at risk of foreclosure. Further, it includes a one-year increase in loan limits for single family homes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, enhancing credit availability in the mortgage market.

While this legislation includes provisions intended to provide a short-term ``fix'' to many of the economic difficulties our economy is currently facing, I do not believe that it addresses the long-term needs of our Nation. While short-term response is critical, we must not neglect infrastructure, energy independence, and innovation needs, without which we will not be able to establish a vibrant U.S. economy. I look forward to working with House leadership, and with my fellow Members on both sides of the aisle, to look to the future, and to build innovative and long-term solutions to the underlying problems our economy faces.

Madam Speaker, this legislation is not perfect, but I believe it is an important step. I continue to advocate for a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures to give financially troubled borrowers time to work with lenders and avoid losing their homes. I also believe we, together, must address the underlying infrastructure problems plaguing our economy. However, I do believe today's legislation will provide important benefits to millions of Americans, to the entire economy, and to our Nation as a whole. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation.

I thank the gentleman for his kind words and his extraordinary leadership, which made it possible for us to come to the floor with this bipartisan historic legislation tonight. Thank you, Mr. Rangel, for your leadership. And thank you, Mr. McCrery, for yours. It's quite an evening when we can come together in a bipartisan way for legislation that helps the middle class, helps those aspire to the middle class, gives incentives to businesses to create jobs to stimulate our economy. I thank you for that.

I acknowledge the leadership of Chairman Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, for his leadership, along with Ranking Member Bachus for his, because those who are concerned about, and that is all of us, the subprime crisis can see some relief in this legislation because of their leadership.

I want to acknowledge another member of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Kanjorski, and salute him for his leadership dropping the bill even before we took this up this evening for seniors and disabled veterans to be getting the recovery rebates as well, as well as clarification of language regarding undocumented persons in our country getting that benefit. Thank you, Mr. Kanjorski, for your leadership.

Before I go on too long, I must salute Leader Boehner. It was a privilege to work with him on this. And Mr. Hoyer and I shared a view of our caucus. We came with consensus to the table. None of us got everything we wanted in the legislation, but we did get a great deal for the American people. We did so in a manner that was timely. We were acting in record time, targeted on the

middle class and those who aspire to it, targeted to businesses, tax incentives to businesses to create jobs, and temporary. So these resources and these tax incentives will be used and spent in a way that will have an impact in the economy.

I also want to salute Secretary Paulson for his persistence and his leadership and his receptivity, shall we say, and responsiveness to some of the values that the Democrats were putting on the table regarding those who have not participated in receiving a recovery rebate before, but do so in this bill.

This was across the aisle, but it is also across the Capitol. We worked it out in record time, again, with Leader Reid and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, on the Senate side, so that tonight we could bring this bill to the floor.

It was only about 2\1/2\ weeks ago that leadership was on the telephone with the President of the United States. He had just returned from his trip to the Middle East. And we talked about what every homemaker in America has known for a long time, that our economy is going into a downturn. We wanted to prevent it from being more of a downturn, and a stimulus was needed.

We had heard from Chairman Bernanke about the state of the economy and that a stimulus was needed and that it should have certain features of being timely, targeted, and temporary. And the President, on that phone call, agreed that we should go forward with a stimulus package in record time. The House put it together and sent it over to the Senate. And I'm very, very proud of that.

If I boast of it, it's because it's highly unusual that we can respond in such record time. But we did so because it was urgent for the American people. So often they listen in on the debate on the floor of the House which seems irrelevant to their lives. This is very relevant to their lives because there are many firsts in here.

For the first time, those who don't make over a certain income are able to participate in the recovery rebates and the child tax credit. In fact, more than 40 million Americans, 40 million families will be receiving those rebates and tax credits who had never received a rebate or a tax refundable child tax credit before. That's just astounding.

It was different from the bill the President originally proposed because his proposal did not have a cap, so some of the wealthiest people in America could get this rebate. Instead, we said, God bless them for their success. We need to put this money in the pockets of those who are living paycheck to paycheck, who are finding it hard or struggling to make ends meet with the price of gasoline, the price of groceries, the price of health care, the price of education, anything that you can name, that costs were going up and the purchasing power of their income was not.

And so we believe that the stimulus, the way it is targeted, will put money in the hands of those who will spend it immediately, injecting demand into the economy and therefore creating jobs, the impact that we want the stimulus to have. Same thing with the small business incentives.

One of the reasons we were able to move so quickly is because we were ready. We were ready. The reason we were ready with the child tax credit is because Congresswoman DeLauro has worked on this issue for her lifetime in Congress. And of course as chairman of the committee, Mr. Rangel has had this as a high priority. So it wasn't something that we had to go create. It's something that we had in our minds and in our hearts to do for a long time.

The tax credits, the incentives for small businesses have been a part of the bipartisan support we have in the House for an innovation agenda so that small businesses and medium-size businesses can take advantage in a short period of time of this incentive that they have to invest and to purchase equipment and the rest. Again, for job creation, good- paying jobs here in America.

We were ready because the Financial Services Committee, under the leadership of Mr. Barney Frank and Ranking Member Bachus, had already passed these bills on the floor of the House. Not everything in the bill is included in this stimulus, but these bills have passed the House and had been sent over to the Senate. Certain features are contained in this bill so that there is some relief for the subprime crisis.

The list goes on and on. But we had our priorities; they have been our priorities for a while. They are particularly essential now in the time of a need of stimulus. So when the time came and the President said he would sign such a bill, we were ready with our priorities.

We fought it out. It wasn't an easy fight, but we knew we had to do it in the shortest period of time. And it wasn't easy. And there were some things that I said to the President on the phone when he congratulated us for going forward that I would have liked to have seen in the bill, like unemployment insurance and LIHEAP and food stamps and the rest. But we will take care of those issues in due course. Every bill cannot accomplish every goal that we have.

I want to identify myself with the comments that Mr. Bachus made. This is a fiscally sound bill. There were those who wanted to make it larger with elements that were not necessarily stimulus that we resisted, excellent ideas. They should be revisited in another piece of legislation for another day.

But we had been cautioned over and over, and we have cautioned each other. And whatever we did in stimulus, even though it would not have to conform with PAYGO, strictly speaking, that it would not be so overloaded that it would be a deterrent to recovery because we would be taking our country more deeply in debt than was justified by our stimulus package for recovery.

So, because of all of this cooperation, hopefully, it will serve as a model. I again want to commend Secretary Paulson for his perseverance and his leadership. And we look forward to soon, in a few days, perhaps, the President of the United States signing this bill. But the Secretary has assured us that with the passage of this bill tonight, even before the Presidential signature, the word will go to the IRS to begin the process of getting these checks out to the families.

So I think every Member of this body should take great pride in the bipartisanship of it, in the focus of it, the discipline of it, and what it means: that it is relevant to the lives of the American people. A typical middle-income family, a family of four with two children, will get $1,800. Eighteen hundred dollars. I think that that is impressive. And families making less than that, other families, depending on the number of their children, will get a sizable check in the mail.

This says to them we respect your contribution to our country, to our economy, to our society, and, even if you don't make a lot of money and pay income tax, that your contribution to our economy is recognized and acknowledging the FICA tax that you pay. And that's why once more I will reiterate that 40 million American families will participate in the recovery rebates to the tune of about $28 billion infused into our economy through their hands.

This is a new direction. I urge my colleagues to support it and am proud to be associated with it. And I thank all for their leadership in making it possible this evening.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it shall be in order at any time to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 5140) to provide economic stimulus through recovery rebates to individuals, incentives for business investment, and an increase in conforming and FHA loan limits, with a Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment; the Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read; the motion shall be debatable for 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means; and the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the previous order of the House, I call up H.R. 5140 and the Senate amendment thereto.

Madam Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may utilize.

Madam Speaker, I have asked the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation to make available to the public a technical explanation of the tax divisions of H.R. 5140. The technical explanation expresses the committee's understanding and the legislative intent behind this important legislation. This explanation document, JCX-16-08, is currently available on the joint committee's Web site.

Madam Speaker, first and foremost, I want to extend my deep appreciation for Speaker Pelosi, for her leadership and commitment to a bipartisan spirit, and to the minority leader, Mr. Boehner, for his hard work and the cooperation as we move toward this truly critical legislation.

In addition, I want to thank my friend, Hank Paulson, for working to broker a compromise between the Congress and an administration that not before had indicated the depth of cooperation that the Secretary of the Treasury invoked.

Finally, I would like to thank the Senate leadership for recognizing the urgency of this relief and finally getting to work to ensure its quick passage today, enabling the House to pass the Senate amendment and delivering it to the President's desk.

I also would like to thank Mr. McCrery, who made it easy for us to work with our leadership in the House to cooperate with the administration to make certain that our mission to speedily pass the stimulus bill was done and sent over to the Senate.

I also want to point out that they should give us all, in our country, and indeed in this House, an opportunity to see that we are not sending these hundreds of billions of dollars in rebate dollars to the people that need it out of compassion. We are not sending it to them because we think it's right that they should put a roof over their heads or clothing on their backs or provide food on the table. We are doing it because, once again, we want to stimulate the economy, and therefore, it means that we want goods and services to be purchased.

We do this and we support this effort because the economists say it's the right thing to do and we do it because these are the people, middle-class people, lower income people, hardworking people, disabled veterans, we do it because it's the right thing to do. But, Madam Speaker, my colleagues in the House, I hope when this recession is over, and it will be over, that we'll take a good look at the people that we are talking about today, and we should be able to say that there is something wrong with this picture and there is something wrong when we can find millions of people unable to provide the basic goods and services they need and, at the same time, find that those who are most affluent are not even disturbed by the recession that we find ourselves in today.

And so we should be pleased that the Congress is doing the right thing. But we also should also remember that it is not with a lot of dignity and pride that people receive this assistance. They receive it because, as the economists and elitists said, they're going to spend this money because they have to spend this money.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my good friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).

Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the chairman of the Finance Committee who, under the leadership of our Speaker, provided the guidance to all of us in the committee to be ready for this occasion if, in fact, we had to. We do have to, we were ready, and I'm proud to be his colleague, Mr. Frank, for 3 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I am certain that all of us feel the same sense of pride in that Speaker Pelosi has responded to a national need, and not only did it by reaching out to the minority leader, but created an atmosphere in this House of Representatives so that we all could respect our dignity and the differences that we have with the other body.

Our staffs, our committee has worked together in such a way that at the end of the day we knew that we would be able to say that it was the House of Representatives that sent the bill over there.

And so I would like to yield 1 minute to our distinguished Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Donnelly) for 2 minutes, who last week introduced H.R. 5172 to assure that 127 million Americans, senior Americans, receive this relief.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz).

Madam Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I cannot think of any higher way of expressing the hopeful bipartisanship in the House of Representatives than expressed by my friend, Minority Leader Boehner.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5140.

Madam Speaker, I ask for an ``aye'' vote on this piece of legislation before the House, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I may consume.

I will also begin my remarks by thanking the leadership on both sides of the aisle, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Boehner, for their efforts on a bipartisan basis to respond in a very efficient and quick manner to the needs of the country, the needs of our economy, by putting together and supporting a stimulus package that we hope, combined with the efforts of the Fed, will indeed avert a recession in this country and will contribute to a higher level of economic growth this year than we otherwise would have had.

Their efforts surely should be taken note of by every Member in this House, indeed of the Congress, and by people across this country. It demonstrates that when we, in this body, want to work together and accomplish something for the country, we can do it. And we certainly have done it in this piece of legislation.

It is a compromise, no question about it. There are things that we would have

liked to have had in this bill that are not in there. There are things that the majority would have liked to have in here that are not in here. But the fact that we were able to come together and get this done and in this very short amount of time is clearly a victory for the American people and I believe a victory for this Congress.

I also want to thank my colleague, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel. He has really reached out to the minority throughout his tenure as chairman, and in this instance, his staff worked very closely with the minority staff and with leadership staff to put this product together. So I want to thank him for his continued gentlemanly conduct of the committee and cooperation with the minority when it's possible.

Madam Speaker, this bill before us today does have a few changes from the House bill that passed just a few days ago.

The changes basically allow Social Security benefits and disabled veterans benefits to count as earned income for purposes of satisfying the $3,000 requirement for earned income to get the prebates: $300 per person, $600 per couple, and even the $300 child credit, if applicable.

So I think certainly that is an improvement to the bill in the sense that we will get more money into the hands of people who will more than likely spend that money very quickly and get that money working in the economy.

The Senate also made some changes with respect to making sure that illegal immigrants are not able to take advantage of this prebate, these checks that are being sent out, and certainly that is a positive development.

Madam Speaker, all in all, I think the product before us this evening is an excellent work of the two bodies on a bipartisan basis and, of course, with the support of the Bush administration. And I hope that all Members in this body will tonight enthusiastically support this product and get this to the President for his signature, to the IRS for their administration, and get the checks in the hands of people and allow businesses to begin to get a bonus depreciation for investment. We think that will help speed investment into this year and create jobs. And that is the best way to fight an economic downturn is to create jobs and get money circulating in the economy with paychecks.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Tax Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to recognize for closing on our side the distinguished minority leader, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), who clearly was instrumental in getting this product developed through the floor and through the process. He has been lauded by a number of our colleagues here tonight, and rightfully so. So I am very pleased at this time to yield the balance of my time to Mr. Boehner.

I thank the ranking member.

First of all, I'd like to commend Chairman Rangel, Chairman Frank, the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican leadership, and Ranking Member McCrery. I think that what we have here is good legislation. I supported it for three reasons when it passed the House.

Most importantly, and I repeat the words of Ranking Member McCrery, we're getting money back in the hands of American citizens. We're letting them make the decision on how to spend the money and not this Congress. It's a tax cut. It's a tax cut for many low- and middle- income Americans. I particularly like the tax cuts we've given to seniors, to veterans, and the disabled, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania pointed out.

Secondly, the Financial Services Committee tried to address the much publicized and very important problems with our housing market by increasing liquidity in our housing market for mortgages. There are people that are ready to buy houses, there are institutions that are ready to loan, but there is a lack of confidence in some of those mortgages and in that financing. And I believe the new limits we've given the GSEs and FHAs will help that market. We've done it short term. We'll revisit it if it needs to be for a longer period of time.

Third, I believe what is lacking most of all in our economy and our country today is a lack of confidence, a lack of optimism.

There has been a lot of expression of the importance of hope, the importance of optimism and confidence. And I believe, at least short term, this package will at least say to the American people, we have confidence in you. There is need for optimism. And, hopefully, in some small way, it will promote optimism and confidence.

I will say this as I close: until and unless we balance the budget, until government begins to spend what it brings in, we're going to have problems. Until we address entitlement reform, we're going to have problems. This government cannot continue to run deficits. If it does, the economy will not, over the long term, recover.

We have a spending problem in this Congress. We need to recognize that. We've recognized in this bill that we spend too much money, that instead the people ought to do it. We ought to continue that.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this economic stimulus package.

The version of the stimulus plan we vote on tonight is very similar to the version passed by the House last month. It includes a number of changes--including tax relief for seniors, veterans, and the disabled-- that will extend the package's benefits to millions more Americans.

Madam Speaker, I support this package for three reasons.

First, it recognizes the basic economic reality that getting money back in the hands of people who earned it is the best way to help our economy. The tax element of this package has been called a rebate, but in essence, it's a tax cut for millions of low- and middle-income Americans who need it the most.

Second, it will help struggling homeowners. It includes several provisions designed to address the lack of liquidity in certain segments of the mortgage market. It temporarily increases the loan limits that apply to mortgages that can be purchased by the housing GSEs,

and increases the size of mortgages which the Federal Housing Administration can insure.

Third, quick enactment of this plan will encourage optimism among Americans concerned about the economy. Madam Speaker, hope has been mentioned very often in this Presidential campaign. Tonight we should send a message to the American people that our economy is strong. There are businesses that are ready to hire, ready to invest, ready to buy new technology. There is a legitimate reason for optimism today, and we should promote that optimism. This package, I believe, will contribute to that optimism and that hope.

Madam Speaker, let me conclude by commending President Bush, Chairman Frank, Chairman Rangel, Ranking Member McCrery, and the Republican and Democratic leadership of this House for coming together so quickly to assemble this stimulus package. I urge all my colleagues to support it.