Floor Statements

I object.

Mr. President, let me say to my colleague from South Carolina, I appreciate his generous comments. We have reached a point where, obviously, we are trying to complete this product. We have been at this for over a week. There are a lot of good ideas, while I disagree with his conclusion on his own amendment. What we are trying to do, at the behest of the leadership, is accomplish as much as we can, where we can, and move forward. I have said this so many times, but if I were writing this on my own, it would look different. We live and work in an institution where we have to deal with 99 colleagues, and 435 in the other body, and an administration down the road. We are trying to package these ideas in a way that would win a majority of support here and will be accommodated in the other body and to receive the ultimate approval of the White House. It is an arduous journey and complicated and an emotionally charged set of issues. It is no easy path. While I, for one, have a number of ideas that have been offered by people I support--in fact, my own idea was rejected. As a principal negotiator, I wasn't able to convince my colleagues on the other side to take an idea that I might point out the Wall Street Journal this morning said the administration is moving closer and closer to. It is a very valid point that the Senator raised, and I agree a lot of what we are talking about is dealing with the effects of foreclosure. Whether you like the idea, we are dealing with after the fact. I would prefer to deal with an effort--and there are some provisions that deal with this--to keep people out of foreclosure.

But with a major thrust we ought to be talking about--and the administration, through the FHA Secure program, which they are opening, will do a large part of that--we are heading in the right direction.

On the CDBG, there are legitimate criticisms about that money. This program is very differently designed. We keep it far more targeted, with more accountability required. One of the values is the following. We are oversupplied in housing. The marketplace is not doing as well in resolving this issue because supply and demand is not working as it normally does because of the abundance of housing out there and the unavailability of capital to move a lot of it.

Our concern was, of course, not only to clean up the properties but to clean up the properties and move them because you get a declining value in neighborhoods with foreclosed properties. So that hard working neighbor my friend talked about who is sitting there going, wait a minute, I have done everything right here and I read all the documents and I made a responsible loan and here you are taking care of the property next door and someone is getting a break with the Government's help and I am not getting much out of it. Why are my tax dollars being used for that purpose?

My answer to his constituents, and to mine, is I understand what you are saying, but I am concerned because if the value of your property, which you have maintained and done everything right with, is declining by 1 percent immediately when the next-door neighbor's property or one down the block is foreclosed on, to allow that to deteriorate affects you directly. We know crime rates go up 2 percent and values, by as much as $2,000 to $5,000, go down that day on that property, and it will continue to decline as that neighborhood further deteriorates. So there is a direct correlation between trying to help the property get back on its feet, to make it marketable and able to be sold because the neighborhood will be adversely affected if we don't do that.

The community block grant program of $4 billion in this bill is targeted. It is right that it is after the fact. We ought to, ideally, figure out a way to keep a person out of foreclosure in the first place. In this bill, we don't do a lot about that. We do it with mortgage revenue bond proposals and with the counseling in the bill that does help.

Clearly, as the Presiding Officer and I heard at a hearing in his State in Philadelphia--we heard from people directly how counseling can make a difference. So there are some provisions which do minimize foreclosure.

In the absence of doing more, we need to ask ourselves: Can we do something when these properties do fall into that situation? That is why this Community Development Block Grant Program has value beyond putting tax money into a community, but making a difference possibly for those other homeowners who otherwise have watched everything they saved and worked for--their single source of wealth creation is in that house, and that equity they built up by being responsible over the years to protect themselves in retirement or to assist their child get a college education, to take care of that unforeseen problem that can happen with a health care crisis, that equity can make all the difference in the world--and through no fault of their own, they watched almost instantaneously that hard-earned equity decline rapidly because of what happened here.

Part of the goal here--and I cannot admit it is going to work in every case--is to make sure that homeowner is getting some protection. They ought to get something back for their tax dollars, and this is an indirect way to help them get back on their feet.

My colleague raised a legitimate point. If it is a great idea, why can't we vote on it? We have reached a point where we want to move on and complete the legislation. There are a lot of ideas we want to bring up. The general thought was to see if we couldn't complete this work and move on to a conclusion. I appreciate my colleague's comments. I thank him for his indulgence and consideration as well.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I object.

Mr. President, I know the Senator from Vermont wants to be heard, but let me just say a few things to my friend from Oklahoma.

First of all, I appreciate his comments about the importance of monitoring and overseeing the programs, the homeless programs in the McKinney-Vento legislation that goes back some time.

He may not be aware of this, but I will raise it with him anyway.

Senator Allard of Colorado and Senator Reed of Rhode Island have offered a piece of legislation to modernize and streamline the McKinney-Vento legislation. It passed out of the Banking Committee some months ago unanimously. I commend Senator Allard and Senator Reed for working together in a bipartisan fashion to come forward with the proposals dealing with homelessness.

The bill--and it can be corrected--we brought up here to bring it up on the consent calendar with anyone who wanted to offer some amendments to it. It sounds as if my colleague from Oklahoma has an amendment that would be right on the subject matter of the Reed-Allard proposal. There has been a hold on the legislation to come forward with that bill, offered by our two colleagues from Colorado and Rhode Island, that specifically addresses the issues, although I am not suggesting exactly the amendment my colleague from Oklahoma has, but it would seem to me that would be an appropriate place to deal with homeless programs.

We may have exact numbers--I tried to inquire here whether it is 1.8 or 2.1. It is a lot of money, obviously, and I do not question that at all. But we do have a bill that is enjoying pretty board-based support here. Rarely, I might add, do we see that--it comes out of a committee of jurisdiction that authored and wrote this legislation, unanimously adopted by every Banking Committee member who had an opportunity to go through the hearings and watch all of it.

I am more than prepared--I do not want to speak for Senators Allard and Reed--that bill could be done this evening, and possibly the amendment suggested by my friend from Oklahoma could be a part of that to go forward. He understands the situation Senator Shelby and I are in, in trying to get this particular bill done. If that hold could come off the legislation and someone sit down and try to work on

this provision, we might very well accommodate the very issue that goes to the heart of the homeless programs.

So I raise that with him. It is S. 1518. It did come out I think several months ago.

Reclaiming my right on the floor, there is a vehicle moving including, possibly, the legislation that is coming from Senator Carper here. It seems to me that making a case for exactly why probably allowing that bill to come up, the very bill that Senator Allard and Senator Reed have drafted on homelessness that was unanimously adopted by the committee after significant work would be the right place--if people have ideas and suggestions on how to deal with Federal property or deal with allegations of fraud and the like, that is the vehicle.

As my colleague from Oklahoma points out, he is the only member with a hold on that bill, so we are not going to be able to get to it, and the suggestion somehow that we are denying him an opportunity is really not the case. I am more than willing to entertain ideas and thoughts, and I do not want to speak for Senator Allard and Senator Reed--they are the authors of the legislation--but I am confident they would be more than willing to sit down and listen to the arguments and possibly include ideas in the legislation.

Ninety-nine Members of this body have decided that this bill is a pretty good bill, and one Member has not. I respect that. You have the right to do that here. But I think the right to do that should also suggest that when you stand up and suggest we are not welcoming enough of an idea here in this bill, we might properly put our attention at the focus where it deserves to be, and that is on bipartisan legislation specifically dealing with the issue of homelessness, which includes various other ideas, and we can get that done.

So I apologize to my colleague from Vermont, but I wanted to address that situation and the work of the committee, on which the Presiding Officer is a member, dealing with these issues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following morning business on Thursday, April 10, the Senate then resume consideration of H.R. 3221, and the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments in the order listed, and if a point of order is raised against an amendment, then there be 2 minutes of debate prior to a vote on the motion to waive the point of order, equally divided and controlled in the usual form: Senator Alexander's second- degree amendment No. 4429; Senator Ensign's amendment No. 4419, as amended, if amended. I also ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander and Senator Ensign be recognized for 5 minutes apiece in consideration of their amendments; that all remaining pending amendments be withdrawn, except the substitute, and that a managers' amendment that has been cleared by the managers and the leaders also be in order; that the managers' package be considered and agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that upon disposition of the listed amendments, the substitute, as amended, be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that upon disposition of the substitute amendment, the bill be read a third time, and the Senate vote on passage of the bill without further intervening action or debate; that upon passage, the title amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to, and that the cloture motion on the bill be withdrawn.

Madam President, I thank you, I thank Senator Shelby and his staff, our staff, and the leaders. The majority leader has been tremendously valuable. Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, the Republican leader, and his staff as well.

This has been a long week but satisfying. I will have more remarks to add about the details of what is here. This is a very important moment, and the leadership deserves an immense amount of credit for making this possible. I thank them immensely.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President.

I have no objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

What is the pending amendment, Mr. President?

The Senator from Maryland wishes to speak.

Mr. President, let me say to my colleague from Pennsylvania, I appreciate the substance of the idea he has offered and, of course, the amendment by Senator Durbin as well. I will not belabor my colleagues with the history of why it is that provision exists.

There were about 10 or 12 of us who strenuously objected to the bankruptcy reform bill. So I had problems with that bill across the board. I will not go into all that here. Let me try and frame this again.

The majority leader, back about a week or so ago, talked with the Republican leader about the possibility of us breaking this logjam that existed, where nothing could even be debated on the housing issue. So the idea was Senator Shelby and myself were designated by our respective leaders to try to come up with a consensus package of ideas, one Republicans and Democrats, by and large, could support to come out with as a core, and from that other amendments would be offered and added along the way, and if there was consensus, we would try to add those.

It is a complicated process, but it was the only way we were going to move beyond the gridlock that was allowing no debate whatsoever.

I am in the position, obviously, of trying to accomplish what our leader is trying to achieve--and he should and I applaud him for it--of trying to get us moving on this issue. We are losing 8,000 people a day in foreclosure and the country and the economy is suffering terribly and we were in gridlock on this issue.

There are some very meritorious ideas. Those who have been in this position of managing legislation, of trying to get it through, know from time to time you are confronted with substantively agreeing with what a colleague is offering but find yourself in the position of where, to move the product along, you do not agree at that particular time to deal with the issue for a variety of reasons.

Let me finish the thought. The idea is we are watching the legislation, quite candidly, because it is a tax bill, with which Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus are dealing. All of a sudden, we found ourselves dealing with other issues. That is not to say this is one. This is one that could clearly relate to the subject matter. There are others dealing with energy policy and the like. It is one of the few vehicles that may move. So I understand the frustrations people may have about putting something on this bill.

The fact is, we could be here endlessly and fail to get a housing bill--albeit short of what I would like or others would like--to get us to a conference with the House to do something about this issue. We can stay the rest of this week or next week and debate a variety of amendments or try to get moving to get something accomplished.

That, I believe, is the motivation behind the majority leader, and I will let Senator Shelby talk for the minority leader. That is the general thought. That is not to suggest these other ideas do not have merit or do not have value, including the idea promoted by the Senator from Pennsylvania. There is a reason why the leadership is responsible for trying to move product through here that may not include every idea everyone has that they would like to see added to legislation.

My hope is cloture will be invoked, that we can go forward, and there can be amendments in postcloture, and if they are germane and deal with the issues at hand, then we will try to accommodate them and, where we have consensus, add them and come to some closure and move forward.

This is not the end of the debate. This is not the end of ideas. We will have hearings this week in the committee. We have proposals we are going to bring up in our committee in markup in the next couple weeks, and we will be back on the floor with other ideas directly related to this subject matter. We are merely trying to move this subject along to achieve some of the results involved.

I admire what the Senator is trying to do. He and I have worked on a lot of issues over the years and certainly this idea. As my colleague from Alabama knows, when Senator Durbin's amendment was offered, I told my colleagues this is one area where I am going to be supportive of that effort to deal with primary residences.

I agree with what my colleague wants to achieve, but there are other considerations we are trying to accomplish with this legislation.

I will be happy to respond to a question.

Mr. President, I have been notified that at least one Member, on the side of my good friend from Pennsylvania, will object to any process going forward. So maybe he can spend some time in his conference lunch to convince some of his colleagues to be more supportive of some of these ideas.

This is not a crumb, let me say to my colleague from Pennsylvania. The idea we are modernizing the FHA is critically important. The fact we have money in here for disclosure, we have resources for counseling, the fact we are getting resources back to the States, $4 billion to assist them as they try to deal with the problems in their local communities, the fact we are providing some tax support for people to move into foreclosed property so we don't add to the supply is critically important as well. These are some very solid ideas.

There are some provisions in the bill, I will be the first to admit, frankly, had I written this all by myself without having to deal with other people who care about some of these issues, I would not have included.

This is far more than a crumb in terms of trying to deal with this issue. More needs to be done, but the suggestion somehow that the community development block grants, counseling, disclosure, and modernization of the FHA and raising loan limits and the like are insignificant is to fail to understand what is in this bill.

More can be done, I do not disagree. But the suggestion that what we have done falls into that category is a vast exaggeration in terms of what we have been trying to accomplish, and more will be done with this issue as well.

Agreed.

Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania, what was done in the Bear Stearns-JPMorgan Chase issue, I would argue alternatives may have been available. In the final analysis, what was done that Sunday night to allow the merger of Bear Stearns with JPMorgan Chase--and this is the conclusion, I think, unanimously of our committee, having had a hearing on it--was probably the right decision, given the alternative of bankruptcy of Bear Stearns and what could have happened on that Monday had the action not been taken by the Fed, the Treasury, and the New York Fed. That is one separate issue. It is a legitimate point to say, shouldn't we do something where we can help out communities and individuals and to get this economy moving in the right direction.

I made that case for a year now, not just in the wake of Bear Stearns. We had our first meetings on this matter in March of last year trying to get something done. I am not going to take a backseat to anyone who discovered this issue in the last couple days and how much they care about it. I have been at it for 13 months, trying to get things moving in this area.

We are doing some things here. My colleagues know very well what objections there have been to doing anything in this area: Let the market take care of it; the problem has been contained; no further problems. Quite the contrary. We are now down to the business of doing something about it, and I regret we are not accommodating everyone on every idea they have the moment they want it considered.

We are doing our best, Senator Shelby and I and members of the committee, to come out with something. Four weeks ago, we couldn't do what we are doing now. We couldn't even debate the issue, I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania.

I am suggesting to the Senator from Pennsylvania this bill does a lot more than provide crumbs. It goes to the heart of very significant issues that need to be dealt with. There are other matters that need to be dealt with.

As my colleague knows, I agree with him about what bankruptcy courts can do with primary residences. I also understand the history of the seventies, why that provision was included, but I believe the times have changed, and under this fact situation, we ought to allow a bankruptcy judge to be able to modify that agreement to allow that individual to stay in their home.

I thought Senator Durbin was right with his idea. The Senator from Pennsylvania has a more modest idea in this area and may attract a few more votes than the 36 we got with Senator Durbin's amendment. So I am willing to support that, but the idea of trying to come to some closure is also important so we can move on, get with the House, resolve some of these matters, and come back. That is what this chairman is trying to accomplish. That is what we were doing last week when we were directed to do so by the leaders of our respective parties.

Mr. President, we will be happy to consider it. It is a matter

under the proper jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee, of which the Senator is a member, and it is not in the jurisdiction of the Banking Committee. That is one of the other issues we face. If he is unable, as a leading member of that committee, as a former chairman of that committee, to have that adopted by his committee and come forward, we certainly would consider it.

I point out we only had 36 votes for the Durbin amendment. I regret that. We only had 12 of us who opposed the bankruptcy reform bill for 6 years around here. Those matters we widely endorsed and supported, including the efforts, as my colleagues may recall, that I tried to do with credit card companies that are gouging the public on a daily basis. So I will take a back seat to no one in my determination to get far better reforms out of the bankruptcy proceedings in the country, and we will certainly do our best. But I want to be realistic with my colleague as well. Unfortunately, the Senator from Pennsylvania and I don't represent a majority in this body when it comes to that issue. The realities are that we only have about half of us who seem to agree with the two of us on this matter.

I thank my colleague. I know there have been a number of other amendments, Mr. President, and I have just been informed that objection will be expressed on every amendment, I guess, that is being offered by a Member of the other side on this matter. So I would inform my colleagues where we stand procedurally.

We are going to have our caucus luncheons where, I am sure, this will be the subject of some discussion as we try to move forward, but, again, I thank Senator Reid, the majority leader. He has a thankless job when it comes to these issues, and he asked Senator Shelby and I to try to do our best to come up with a consensus package. Granted, now the subject matter has become of great interest to everyone, and it should, and we have tried to do just that, to put together a consensus package--not an easy thing to accomplish in this body, but we tried to do that. Again, we will try to move forward with other ideas that we can incorporate through our committee and others.

Mr. President, the Senator from Arkansas wants to be heard on this matter as well, and I thank her for her patience.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will ask for 2 additional minutes, if I can, to respond to my colleague from Arkansas.

First of all, I agree with her totally about the value. Over the many years I have been a long-time supporter of these legal services offices and the job they do on behalf of people all across the country, particularly in rural America, and the difference they make. So I am in complete agreement with her about the value of this approach.

I would inform her that the regular order would be asking consent, after cloture has been invoked, to bring up the matter she wants to bring up. It is a tax matter and one that would require the consent of the chairman of the Finance Committee and the ranking member. So it is a matter where we are leaving it up to that jurisdiction to respond. So I want to be careful. I don't know how Senator Baucus feels about that. I don't want to put words in his mouth at all. I suspect he has the same sort of reaction as I do, and it is a positive one.

I am grateful for my colleague's understanding the situation we are in, trying to accommodate as many ideas as we can and to move from here to the next stage and deal with other aspects of the legislation. We couldn't have gotten here without the majority leader insisting, and really with the minority leader, to come together and allow us to bring up this package. So there are a lot of very good ideas and ones I applaud and welcome, but in the interest of trying to move forward, we are not going to be able to accommodate all of them.

I am not suggesting that will happen in this case, but I again appreciate her recognition that what we are trying to accomplish and deal with here is difficult. It is serious. As she points out, we have a lot of people suffering every single day--I have been making that case for 12 months--and we haven't been able to have a debate about this subject until last week. So to the extent that we have gotten that far along, that is some achievement.

I hope now that we are in the debate we can do some valuable and worthwhile works that will make a difference, and her suggestion contributes to that. So my hope is we will be able to accommodate this in the package as well.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I thought I might take a couple of minutes toward the close of the day and share with my colleagues where we stand on the matter of the housing proposal we have been on since the middle of last week. I wish to again thank Majority Leader Reid. Without his leadership, we would not be here. We would not be in a position to actually do some things that are critically important to work our way out of this mess our country is in when it comes to the foreclosure crisis, the problems Americans are facing, not to mention the contagion effects that are moving this issue beyond housing into other aspects of our economy. It was Majority Leader Reid who reached out to the Republican leader, suggesting we try to get together, Democrats and Republicans, on a compromise proposal to move to and then deal with other issues where we could, where there was some consensus, to then be able to meet with the other body to see if we couldn't resolve outstanding questions dealing with the issue of housing and foreclosure.

As I have said over and over for the last week since Senator Shelby and I spent that 24 hours we were given--not a great deal of time, considering the number of issues involved in this question--to come back with a package that represented Democrats' and Republicans' common points on this question, there were a lot of issues Democrats wanted, that I wanted, there were issues Republicans wanted that the other side was not willing to agree to, and that was the charge we were to avoid, to come back with a package on matters we could agree on, which is not always easy in a Senate that is divided 51 to 49, where the margins are narrow and the differences are significant. But nonetheless, we did that.

This package includes positive provisions. One, we are going to get an FHA modernization bill. That has been kicking around for a long time. We took those loan limits from, I think it is $362,000 up to $550,000. There were some 19 States that would have been excluded from the FHA program or at least parts of States that would have been excluded, such as California, my own State of Connecticut, candidly, Massachusetts, New Jersey, many States, New York. There are pockets in these States where even the average cost of a home is higher. So the loan limits went up. FHA modernization does other good as well, an important point.

The issue of counseling, last year we appropriated $42 million nationwide for counseling services to deal with the housing crisis-- hardly enough to deal

with the demands people had on counseling. Senator Bond and I offered an amendment last year and got $180 million for counseling services which we thought contributed, and it did, to assisting groups across the country, nonprofits to work with those facing foreclosure or in highly distressed mortgages to work out those differences.

I would have liked to have added $200 million more to the counseling program. That is a proposal Senator Murray, who cares deeply about this issue, Senator Schumer, who cares about the issue, and others wanted to bring up. When we sat down to negotiate that issue, there was little or no appetite for any additional money in the counseling area. So we compromised between the 200 and zero and came up with $100 million. I would have liked more. But again, we were directed and asked by the leadership to try to develop a set of consensus ideas. Again, there may be other amendments--there was on this--to add additional funds to it.

We provided money for community development block grants to assist communities that have a lot of distressed properties or foreclosed properties. I have made the case over and over what this can do to a community and neighborhood. When you have a single foreclosed property, the value of every other home in that neighborhood or the surrounding area can decline in value immediately. What you don't need is more supply out there. Right now we are overloaded with supply. It is one of the reasons why the market is not doing as much in correcting this problem, because of the oversupply of housing. So when we do what we can to clean up housing, to get it back on the market and hopefully get people into that housing, it not only benefits the people who get to purchase a home, but it also does a lot to increase the value of the surrounding homes, not to mention, of course, stabilizing a declining property tax base, which supports police, fire, social services, all the other issues that are adversely affected when you have a foreclosed property or properties in your neighborhood or community. So that was a major achievement in this bill.

I would have liked some additional funds for community development block grants. It is a very good program. It works very well. To target these resources into that area is something we can applaud in this legislation.

We also have offered some tax credits for people who move into foreclosed properties. It is a 2-year deal. It involves about $3,500 a year in tax credits. The idea is to get this property back on the tax rolls, to get people into the property so, again, you stabilize neighborhoods before you end up with further declining values and erosion in these areas, blight, all the other problems that happen.

How big a problem can that be? Let me tell you how big that can be. I have one community in my State that I have talked about where there are 6,000 foreclosures in a city of 100,000 people. Let me tell you what that looks like in a city. Imagine if you end up with 6,000 boarded-up properties in a city of 100,000 people or less. Obviously, the value of every other home in that city is going to be adversely affected. So while people said: I don't think you ought to be providing a tax credit to get owner-occupied people into these homes, well, you can make a case for that, but I think we all benefit if we can get someone into that property, clean it up. That is taxes coming into the community. The value of surrounding homes I think are benefited from it. So again, I think that is a good provision. It was offered here. It has to be foreclosed property. You have to live in the house for a period of time. It doesn't invite speculation or involve new properties. It is foreclosed properties.

We also had a number of provisions to deal with veterans. Again, I thank Senator John Kerry, Senator Dan Akaka of Hawaii, Senator Coleman, among others, Senator Sanders of Vermont. All had ideas on how we could assist our men and women in uniform who are facing not only the difficulty of being in the military service today, potentially serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also facing potential foreclosures. We have done a lot in this bill to make sure they are not going to be adversely affected.

It may not seem like much or a lot of people, but the fact that we could do something to help mayors and local governments with foreclosed properties, as well as providing some way for people to get into these homes, is a positive step, not to mention the FHA modernization, the mortgage revenue bonds, $1.6 billion, not exactly a small amount of money, designed specifically to get people into fixed rate affordable mortgages that they can work out. That is going to be a tremendous asset to people.

There are some related matters we probably have to deal with in the Tax Code so it could be even more potent, but it is a major accomplishment in this bill that is something we can applaud again and celebrate as being very helpful. In fact, this is the $10 billion in mortgage revenue bond authority included in this proposal.

There are other provisions in the bill. Frankly, there are some that go too far. I am the first to admit it. But I was asked to try to put something together. In doing so, I wished to have a provision in here that I cared deeply about and that is the home preservation idea, where we could forestall the ability of people. In the ultimate situation, where you provide money to mayors to clean up, why not stop foreclosure in the first place. I have talked about it since January. There is, I think, sort of a growing constituency that understands this and has offered some ideas on how to be supportive. But I couldn't get my own idea in this bill as the negotiator. I tried to convince my good friend from Alabama and others this was a provision I thought we ought to have in this bill.

He has some very legitimate questions about it. A good set of hearings probably will accomplish it. This Thursday, we are going to have a hearing on this idea and other ideas in the Banking Committee and a hearing the following week as well because we would like to have a couple hearings on it. My hope is that at the conclusion, we can have a markup and, along with some other provisions the Presiding Officer is aware of, as a member of the committee, we can bring back as a package, hopefully, in a bipartisan way, that we can move through this Chamber that will contribute some answers to this economic crisis that has as its center the foreclosure crisis.

My own provision is not part of this package as much as I wanted it and argued for it. But I couldn't get it included at all. So there are things I would have liked to have had in this bill that are not here.

There are some things in this bill that I think go too far. I will be the first to admit it. But I have learned over the years that if you wait for the perfect, you don't get much. In this body with 100 Members, with very different views on a lot of these matters, you do your best. Particularly when you are divided 51 to 49, it is hard to develop that kind of consensus. But that is what it is, and that is how you get legislation passed. You begin to have to move on it. That is why I am urging my colleagues and I am grateful for the vote on cloture. I don't like to cut off debate for anyone on matters where certain amendments may not then survive a postcloture motion. But we need to come to some closure on this.

I would say to the Presiding Officer as well that there are about 15 or 20 amendments that are going to be worked out, I think, that various people have offered in addition to what is in the core provisions here that we are working hard on, the adjoining staff, to try to accommodate where we can. So in addition to the core provisions, there are other ideas that have come forward that we hope to have included in this final product that we can produce, hopefully, by tomorrow.

But we are pretty much done with the debate. We have debated this a lot. People know or can find out whether their amendments are germane or survive postcloture or would avoid an objection being filed against them. If that is the case and they want to come over and let Senator Shelby and me talk about them and listen to people's ideas, it is still possible some additional ideas can be included.

I have been told there are some people who are just going to object to anything that comes up. I would wish that would not be the case, but that is a right Members have. They have the

right to object to anything because it takes unanimous consent to bring up these matters. If you do not get the consent, it does not come up. So I know the Democratic leader, working with the Republican leader, is trying to convince those Members who have blanket objections to anything to remove those objections and to allow some of these ideas to come up to be considered as part of this package.

We then have to go through the process of meeting with the other body. Congressman Barney Frank, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the House, is working on a similar package or related package. I am never going to get there to work out some differences, some of the different ideas that may become a part of this legislation, if I do not leave here. We cannot solve this problem by talking to ourselves. We are going to have to sit down and talk with people who have different points of view on this if we are going to come up with some common answers.

So that is sort of the status of play here at 6:30 this evening. There is no reason why we need to exhaust 30 hours. There is a lot of other work to be done in this body on other matters. This is not the only issue that is before this Congress.

So my hope would be that tomorrow morning, for those who have additional ideas who want to come over, for those who are waiting to see if we can get some answers, that we do that. I am prepared to spend the time to try to work things out where we can and to say to those where we cannot work it out: I am sorry, I cannot accommodate every Member who has an idea on this bill. Beyond that, we need to come to closure and move on. My hope would be we would not have to wait until 9 p.m. tomorrow night to arrive at that point.

I am more than happy to yield back time under the 30 hours, as I am confident Senator Shelby would be, but we do not want to do that without giving our colleagues an opportunity to be heard on these matters.

So I will urge colleagues in the morning, if they would come over and bring their ideas or at least if they have amendments to bring them up. We can vote on some of these. Some may carry, some may not, but allow us to move forward and have a final vote on this package and then go back to work in the committee to bring out these additional ideas we have been talking about, as well as to get to a conference with the other body to try to resolve what is in this bill and what they will offer themselves.

With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senators Kohl and Carper as cosponsors to amendment No. 4489, as submitted by Senator McCaskill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 505, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on April 8, 2008, by the President of the United States: Amendments to the Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union (Geneva, 1992), (Treaty Document No. 110-16.)

I further ask unanimous consent that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed, and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, April 9; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day, the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business for up to 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each and the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 3221, and that all time during any morning business, recess, or adjournment of the Senate count postcloture.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

I am going to be here all afternoon. So anyone who wants to offer amendments, I will be here to consider any amendments and debate anytime they want. We are not going anywhere. We have no more votes. We certainly are offering amendments.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the offering of the three amendments, the Senator from Louisiana be recognized.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I underscore the point the Senator from Montana has just made, and I say this in the same spirit in which he has expressed his remarks. This is a housing bill. We have 8,000 people a day in foreclosure--8,000. Just as we started this debate, 24,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their homes--24,000 people lost their homes.

Now, I agree energy independence is critically important. But this isn't a Christmas tree. There are ways of doing these energy bills in other matters. I was under the impression we wanted to get a housing bill out that could make a difference in people's lives.

Why are we taking up matters that run the risk of tying this up for weeks on end in a conference with the House on matters they disagree with, that are not paid for, that may get a Presidential veto, and as a result we watch even more people lose their homes? It is a housing bill. It is a housing bill.

So with all due respect to the authors of this amendment, I am going to oppose every one of them from here on out so we can get this bill done. We have more to do. This is not an all-inclusive bill. A lot more needs to be done. We are, frankly, not doing

enough for people in foreclosure, in my view, and I have made that speech for a year now on this matter. We have finally gotten to a point where we have come together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with housing, and all of a sudden I find myself dealing with every other issue in creation because we haven't had bills that have moved along for whatever reason.

But we shouldn't make people who are losing their homes, with our economy suffering, pay the price because we haven't dealt with these other issues. This is housing. The Senator from Montana is absolutely correct, and I intend to stand with him. We may lose. I hope we don't because we run the risk of having this one effort to make a difference on housing fall apart.

With all due respect to the authors of this legislation, and I agree with all of them on the substance, this is not the place and time for this issue. We need to deal with housing.

Mr. President, I have great respect for my colleague from Florida and the Senator from Minnesota for their work on this effort, having been involved years ago in the creation of Individual Retirement Accounts going back to the early 1980s, recognizing the value of encouraging people to set aside hard-earned income for retirement, for health care, for education as the motivation. Let me mention one concern I have while both Senators are on the floor, and I don't question at all the motivations behind it. There is nothing in this amendment that would require a writedown. What we are trying to do is get the lenders to write down the size of these mortgages, to work out different arrangements so the borrower could afford the mortgage.

What concerns me here is, while we are using this retirement income or these savings accounts to help meet these obligations, there is no commensurate responsibility on the part of the lender to try to reduce the cost. At the end of 2 years you may end up at exactly the same level. The money goes into the pockets of the lender, but at the end of the 2 years we are still faced with the size mortgage we had before, and the homeowner is in the same position they are in today.

I don't have any quick idea here for you to tie this together to see if we can't incentivize that lender on that mortgage to also write down the cost of part of that or to restructure it in a way so that person facing foreclosure would be able to handle this. These moneys would be of tremendous help to them. But if you don't do anything about the size of the mortgage or conditions of it, all you have done is kicked the can down the road for 2 years and then also watch that retirement income get exhausted. You can put it back in, but it seems to be defeating the very purpose of trying to get workouts.

We started a year ago with the stakeholders and set up a set of principles for writedowns. Unfortunately, according to Moody's, only 1 percent of the lending institutions have done that in a year-- tragically, in my view. We would be in a very different position had they done otherwise. So I am very suspicious about their willingness to do this, and merely providing additional resources to them coming out of people's hard-earned money, although you have a good idea putting money back in. I would like to find a way to incentivize the lender so the people can use these resources to stay in the home. That is merely an idea to consider in the next couple of days as we go forward.

Mr. President, before the Senator from Louisiana leaves, first of all, let me commend her generally. All of us at one time or another have faced natural disasters in our State, but I can't recall anything, at least in recent memory, that would compare to what the Gulf State have suffered and particularly what the State of Louisiana has suffered. I know some may say: Well, every time there is a bill up, that Senator from Louisiana has an amendment to help her folks in Louisiana. That is how it ought to be. They are very fortunate indeed to have a fighter such as Mary Landrieu in their corner.

As she said, this wasn't any disaster. This was devastating. For those of us who have been there, as I was, and as one who has been there on several occasions since then, it still is stunning to me to go down and see the devastation still exists. In most disasters,

within weeks or months after the occurrence, it is amazing how recuperative areas are; however, despite the Herculean efforts of many in her State and others, the devastation still persists.

Certainly, those who have lost their homes suffer the most devastating impact of all, in many ways, because that is the center of a neighborhood, it represents the ability of a family to survive and stay together. All the elements and qualities we like to attribute to being an American family are associated with our homes. The fact that so many have been destroyed as a result of these disasters is something all of us are mindful of, and if we are not, the Senator from Louisiana reminds us of it on a daily basis. We thank her for that.

We are certainly going to do everything we can to accommodate and be supportive of this effort. As she points out, it doesn't expand the program financially. It operates within the financial constraints as the amendment has been crafted. Right now it is focused on the Gulf States, those areas that were adversely affected. My inclination is to keep it that way. That is not to suggest other States may not have had similar occurrences, but I think because of the uniqueness of what happened there, we need to recognize that in this effort. I would be a little uneasy about expanding it. Not that that is without merit, but I think particularly in this case, with this one occasion we are talking about a particular compelling case which has been made.

So once again, I thank her for fighting on behalf of our fellow American citizens who happen to be her specific constituents. We thank her for it. Over this weekend, we will take a look at it, and if there are any questions we have about it, I will get back to her, but I will be urging Senator Shelby and others to be supportive of this idea.

Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, let me commend my fellow New Englander for this idea. You wonder how something such as this persisted as long as it did. I wish to commend our colleague for discovering it and finding it out. Senator Shelby is not here this afternoon, but his staff is around, and we have been talking with them. I think this will overwhelmingly be accepted. This should not require a recorded vote.

I was telling the staff I am one of six children. My oldest sister Carolyn was born legally blind. When I arrived at the House of Representatives in the mid-1970s, I remember as a freshman I discovered you couldn't be a foreign service officer if you were legally blind. We managed to change those regulations. How silly a rule it was. Unrelated or related, I guess, to some degree here, but I thank my colleague from Vermont for raising this.

I appreciate his kind comments about Senator Akaka. Senator Kerry and Senator Coleman offered some ideas as well on the veterans housing issues also. I am told by Senator Shelby's staff he is very supportive of this

as well. This isn't a large amount. It may not be a banner headline for some, but the Senator from Vermont is going to make a difference in the lives of some families and some individuals. It may not be thousands. Even if there are a few hundred, it makes a difference.

So at a moment such as this, on a Friday afternoon, when most people have headed off for home, let the Record record and history record that the Senator from Vermont made a difference in the lives of a handful of people with this amendment. I thank him.

Mr. President, I am told, and I could be corrected, but I think we have probably completed any amendments to be offered on this legislation at this juncture. I will wait for instruction from the leaders on how they want to proceed, and while we are doing that, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, there are at least one or two other Members who may come to the floor to talk about this bill or maybe even offer some ideas they intend to propose next week when we reconvene. I thought it might be worthwhile at the end of this week--which has been a busy week, obviously, and one where a lot of attention for the first time in a long time has been focused on the most critical economic issue we face, and that is the foreclosure crisis--to restate where we are.

As many of my colleagues know, I began this process almost a year ago when we convened the stakeholders across the country on a bipartisan basis, I might add, in the Senate Banking Committee to talk about the foreclosure crisis--that was March of last year--resulting in a set of principles we adopted jointly that would make it possible for workouts of these mortgages that would make it possible for more Americans facing foreclosures to stay in their homes. That was the goal as we began last spring when this emerged as a growing problem.

I felt then, and it has been confirmed over the last number of months, that this was not a minor issue, that it was not going to go away or likely to be contained very quickly. Unfortunately, that has proven to be just the case.

Today, we are looking at economic statistics that point to a difficult time. We are in a recession. I know it has not been declared formally yet, maybe Washington hasn't called it that yet, but if you are out there trying to feed your family, put fuel in your automobile, pay your mortgage, pay your child's college tuition or anything else, you are watching inflation at the highest rates it has been in years, and we are watching unemployment numbers continue to rise. The fiscal picture of our country is the worst it has been in years, with the national debt now reaching some $9 trillion, a staggering sum of money accumulated over the last 5 or 6 years. The value of the dollar is the lowest it has been since we allowed our currency to float back in the early 1970s.

Every major economic indicator points to what difficulty our country is in, and this crisis has been compounded and exacerbated by a foreclosure crisis. That is the center of this issue, the foreclosure crisis. So everything we should be doing should be designed to try to offer relief in that sector. If we do that, then I believe we can take a major step forward in getting us back on track again and, hopefully, this recession will not last long and people's confidence and optimism can begin to rise.

This is the first time we have dealt with this issue in any comprehensive way at all in the last year. There have been a number of other bills that have been brought to the floor that have made some contribution to this issue. But this is the first time we have actually had a day or two to debate the housing crisis and to offer some ideas on resolution of that issue.

I want to add, as quickly as I can, that anyone who thinks this bill is the end-all is making a huge mistake. This bill is a step in the right direction, it is a positive one and a good one, but there are key missing ingredients. Why is that the case? That is the case because, candidly, we weren't able to get any debate going at all unless we could develop some consensus around several provisions on which there would be little or no debate, some core issues, and then open the process for some additional ideas, as we have seen over the last few days, with various amendments that have been offered and considered already. But it is a step in the right direction. It does not include the kind of fundamental relief for those in foreclosure or about to go into foreclosure and offering them some escape from losing their homes.

So while I welcome the steps we are taking, I would be the first to admit and tell my colleagues that we have yet to really address the underlying problem; that is, how do we keep people in their homes? In fact, we will have a hearing next week, Mr. President, on the very idea that has now been circulating over several months and that I proposed back several months ago--that has also been embraced, I might point out, by the chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the other body. I am pleased to say that there are a number of Members here, both Republicans and Democrats, who, while they have not signed on to a bill, have been extremely encouraging in terms of their support for this idea. So I hope in the coming days to be able to finalize a proposal and bring it to the floor that would, for the first time, offer some very meaningful direct relief to the people who are facing foreclosure--some 8,000 a day.

We talk in numbers here of billions of dollars and millions of people, trillions of dollars. The language gets beyond the grasp of most people to understand. But I think everyone can understand when I tell you that almost 8,000 people a day are going into foreclosure. Over the last 2 or 3 days we have been debating this bill on the floor, some 24,000 of our fellow citizens are finding themselves in danger of losing the most important possession they have outside of their families, and that is their home. And every day we wait, every day we delay, every day we procrastinate, every day we talk about something other than the core issue affecting our economy, more and more Americans run the risk of being in that statistic of losing their homes. And it isn't just them, because for every foreclosure that occurs in a square block, the value of every other home in that neighborhood declines as well. So while people are saying: Well, I am not in foreclosure, I am not likely to be there, but my neighbors are, you are affected by it. We know that values decline by as much as 1 percent of median if one of your neighbors watches their property go into foreclosure, if it ends up being boarded up or in deteriorating condition. Crime rates go up. So there is a ripple effect to all of this, and hence

the importance of addressing the underlying issue of how do we keep people in their homes.

A lot of what we are talking about in this bill is how to deal with the properties once they are foreclosed. That is not an insignificant problem, and I welcome the opportunity to do something about it. But it seems to me that if we really wanted to address the issue, instead of how much money we can spend to rehabilitate foreclosed property or how much money we can get to mayors or county supervisors to clean up neighborhoods and to put them in better shape for possible resale, or to come up with a tax provision that will make that foreclosed property attractive to some future buyer, why not spend as much time seeing to it that we keep people, where we can, in their homes? That is what we are going to be offering in the coming days.

But there are some very good ideas in this proposal, so as we go into the weekend now, before we come back on Monday and Tuesday, I thought it might be worthwhile just to briefly encapsulate what has been accomplished and what is in this bill.

First of all, we provide $100 million for counseling services to help people stay in their homes. That is in addition to the $180 million already appropriated last year. Senator Bond and I offered that language, and it was adopted, and it has been a real asset to these organizations out there that assist people every day.

I had the privilege of meeting with some families in Connecticut a week or so ago who were facing foreclosure and would have been in foreclosure but for the intervention of these nonprofit organizations that were able to establish a workout with the lender and the borrower and have been able to keep people in their homes. So this is $280 million for this fiscal year. If you compare that to the $42 million that existed previously, it is a substantial increase.

Would I like more here? Absolutely. My colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Murray, and Senator Schumer wanted $200 million. I am not going to ever tell them I disagree with that, but in trying to put together a package here, the only amount of money the majority leader and I were able to get in that negotiation was to cut the difference and get $100 million for counseling. I am hopeful we can add some more to that in time, but at this juncture we have $100 million for it.

We have provided $4 billion to go to community development block grants specifically targeted to assist local governments to take a foreclosed property and put it in condition so it can be resold or used as rental housing. That idea is to try to make sure we don't end up with a lot more supply than we already have.

One of the reasons the market is not necessarily addressing this issue as comprehensively as we might like is because the supply of housing vastly exceeds demand. When you end up with people in foreclosure, you are adding to that supply. One of the reasons we ought to keep people in their homes is you then reduce that supply, and the normal economic market forces then would begin to assist us. That is where supply and demand get closer together and the market can help resolve some of this problem. By having foreclosed properties that grow worse, become abandoned, fall into disrepair, the value of other homes begins to decline in the neighborhood, and it makes it far more difficult to address this problem in the near or long term. So the $4 billion in community development block grants is designed to go to those communities and specifically give them help to see to it that these properties can get back on their feet.

The mortgage revenue bonds we are providing here as well, some $1.5 billion for mortgage revenue bonds, will help people refinance out of the lousy mortgages they got into. It is not as much as I would like, but it will assist people to get a better deal, a better mortgage than the one they have. That does make a difference for some of these people who are trying to come to a different economic circumstance than the one they are in. So it is not insignificant. I would have liked to have seen us do a bit more, but it will make a difference. So there is $1.6 billion in that area.

Veterans. I want to thank Senators Kerry, Akaka, Sanders, and I think Senator Coleman as well, if I am not mistaken, who were all involved in trying to do what we could to assist our men and women serving in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are already under tremendous pressure, to make sure their properties are not foreclosed on underneath them while they are off in a desperate condition serving our country. Whether you agree or disagree with our policies, don't ever blame the soldier, the airman, the marine, the sailor out doing their job, and least of all they shouldn't be losing their homes in the process. So we provided for that in this legislation as well, and I thank my colleagues for those ideas.

We provided as well some assistance here for builders. I had some questions about this, I will be quite candid with my colleagues, and had I been writing this on my own, I am not sure I would have added those provisions. But there were those here who felt strongly about that, both Republicans and Democrats, and wanted to do something in the Tax Code to assist in these losses, to extend them over a longer period of time. It is in the bill. Again, I had some reservations about it, but, as my colleagues know, you don't write these things on your own, and if you are trying to put together a compromise package, the word ``compromise'' implies that you are going to accept some things you may not like and you are going to have some things tailored back that you want support for.

On Federal Housing Administration modernization, here we have raised the loan limits from $417,000 to $550,000. We also require that the downpayments will be as much as 3\1/2\ percent. That is a lot more than I would like, candidly. I wanted 1\1/2\ percent. But in order to get that additional $230,000 increase over the loan limits, where some 19 States, I might add, would have been disadvantaged--higher cost States or at least part of their States in higher cost--we had to agree on a compromise here and raising that number to 3\1/2\ percent. But that $550,000 under FHA will make a huge difference for many people who are looking again to refinance or to get mortgages they can afford. So it is a very valuable addition to this bill, and I welcome the opportunity to include that as well.

Those are some of the major provisions of what we have packaged. There will be additional amendments offered on Tuesday that will add to this, some of which or all of which may be adopted either by voice vote or recorded votes, but it is a step again in the right direction. It is action. It is movement on this issue.

Again, as I said, the bill doesn't in any way go far enough, in my view, to help the distressed borrowers, those who are living under the monthly threat of foreclosure, in fact the daily threat of foreclosure on their homes. So it is hardly a final action, but it is a first step and a major step in the right direction.

There was an idea that I had hoped to include in this bill and that I couldn't get agreement to bring as part of the bill. The danger of bringing it up as an amendment, Mr. President, is that I am concerned, because it is complicated, it might not carry, and therefore, with negative votes, it would be harder to bring it back. But as many will tell you here, the effort to try to restructure these mortgages could make a huge difference.

One of the problems we are having, of course, is that capital has seized up. It is not moving. How do you begin to get capital to flow in these markets? One certain way is to get some clear ideas of where the bottom, where the floor is in the residential mortgage market, and that is unclear as I speak. As long as it is unclear where that bottom is, then you are going to find people very reluctant to move capital into this area, or others, for that matter. This problem has spread far beyond the housing issue. It is now into student loans, car loans, and every other aspect of our economy is being affected by this.

So the idea--and it is not a new one; actually, it has been used in the past--is to try to see if we can come up with a scheme that would allow us to reduce or write down the value of these mortgages to some degree, thereby the lender would be getting less than they anticipated when they made the original mortgage, but they would end up getting something rather than a foreclosed property and nothing coming

back. Secondly, the borrower would have to pay the insurance to FHA, which would guarantee this mortgage. They would also have to stay in the home. These residences would have to be owner occupied. It is a voluntary program both for the lender and the borrower. To the extent that value in the property increases, then money would come back to the Federal Government as a result of financing, through insurance, this instrument.

That is a rough idea of what it would do. The real value of it, aside from obviously helping people stay in their homes, is establishing that floor and that bottom. Anyone who is paying any attention to this issue at all will tell you that unless we address that issue--address that issue--we will be back here month after month after month in the coming years dealing with the effects of the problem, and that is money going to our cities to help them make foreclosed properties look better, and we will be doing things we can to help out people to somehow get through all of this. But if you really want to address the issue, then you have to confront the problem, and that is that capital is not moving.

The one thing we can do, of course, is to provide this kind of floor. You need to have enough transactions to determine that, but I believe that if we act quickly enough around here, we can make a difference in that area. And I will hold a hearing on this in the Banking Committee next week. We will have one additional hearing, at the request of Senator Shelby and others, to examine this issue and fine-tune it. I am pleased a number of people here and outside of this body have indicated very strong support for this idea, cutting across the normal ideological lines that too often divide us, as something we ought to do.

I invite my colleagues to take a good look at this, or their staffs, over the weekend. I will submit, at the end of these remarks, a copy of the bill and its proposals, and I would strongly invite people to take a look at it, and any thoughts and ideas they have to strengthen this or improve it, I welcome. No one is claiming exclusive authorship of this idea. As I mentioned, it was tried during the Great Depression. In those days, the Federal Government actually purchased these very distressed mortgages at a very discounted rate and then arranged for that owner-occupied resident to stay in the home at a new rate. The Government actually made some $14 million on that program back in the Great Depression. We are not suggesting anything quite like that, although there are some similarities to it as a way of keeping people in their homes.

Anyway, I invite people to look at that idea because I think it does go right to the heart of what we are talking about. There are other ideas as well to try to strengthen this situation, but unless we do something like what I have suggested here, actually dealing with the 8,000 people a day who are falling into foreclosure, then this problem is only going to grow in its magnitude and the ability to provide some relief for people is going to grow far more expensive than it already is. That is the reason I am urging my colleagues to take a look at this idea to see if we can't, in the coming few days, complete a markup in the committee and then bring a bill to the floor that would really provide some meaningful and direct assistance to those who are facing this problem.

Look, I am not talking about speculators, Mr. President. That is a different crowd altogether. I feel bad that they have lost money, but we bear no moral obligation to help out a speculator. And I am worried about those who should never have gotten into a mortgage in the first place, but there is probably not a lot I can do about them except to help them in some ways.

We are talking about that large constituency in the middle, who were lured into very bad deals, were lured into arrangements they never could afford at the fully indexed rate. You could say they bear some responsibilities for having gone into those deals, and I do not disagree with that, but if you only were going to look at the foreclosed property you might draw that conclusion--we bear no responsibility to deal with the individual caught in those circumstances. But let me make a case to you if you are harboring those thoughts, why you might want to think differently about this. If you live in that neighborhood, if you live next-door or you live down the block or if your child does, in a new home, one they just bought, the value of every other property declines with one foreclosure in a neighborhood. That doesn't help anybody. We are watching housing values decline two consecutive years in a row. This is the first time that has happened since the Great Depression; sales are way off--all the related economic problems associated with a massive downturn in the housing area.

We may have as many as 50 million homes adversely affected by foreclosure. The number of foreclosures could be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million homes in the country, but the number of homes affected by it is vastly in excess of the number of actual foreclosures. Those numbers on foreclosures may be low. It may be higher than that. We are hoping it will not be. But even if not, the ripple effect is going to be felt by everyone else in the area. If you are harboring the notion I don't care about my neighbor, I am sorry they got themselves into that mess, I feel badly for them, but I don't think we have any obligation to do anything about them at all, I remind you it will affect you--it affects all of us; hence, the necessity to address this issue and do everything we can to keep people in that home if we can.

We are all going to benefit from that. Our economy clearly would also benefit in a very specific way; people who live within that neighborhood will be benefited by our efforts to try to stabilize this situation and have better financial arrangements for those who otherwise are going to lose their homes.

That is where we are as we complete our business at the conclusion of this week. This bill has been a good week, I would say. This bill is not one that has everything we would like to have in it, but the good news is this: The Senate, for the first time in a year, is comprehensively trying to address this housing crisis. While you may not agree with everything we have done--you may be disappointed, as I am, that we do not have some provisions in here I would like to see included--the fact is we are debating, discussing and coming up with ideas and adopting them, to provide some relief for people in this area, as it should be.

I am grateful to Senator Shelby, my colleague from Alabama, the former chairman of the Banking Committee. I am very grateful to the majority leader, Senator Reid. When I talked to him last week before we came back, we both agreed this was an issue we had to pursue. He agreed and went out and sought out Senator McConnell and created the kind of arrangement that allowed for Senator Shelby and I to spend over 24 hours to package a proposal that could serve as the core coming forward. So we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the majority leader for insisting this be the debate this week, that we move forward next week and try to conclude our business, get together with the other body and resolve these matters and then come back with other ideas on how we can provide some real relief in this area.

I conclude by thanking him and his staff as well as our own staffs on the Banking Committee who worked through the night to try to come up with some compromises in these areas. It is always difficult to do it when you have 50 Members in a body with very strong ideas on where things ought to be. These people don't often get the recognition they deserve for spending the long hours and putting together these kinds of packages. I am grateful to the Senate Banking staff, Democrats and Republicans, for their efforts. My hope is next week we can conclude this and then come back again with some additional ideas that can truly make a difference.

I thank everyone for their involvement. I know there are several other people who want to come over and be heard on this subject matter, but in their absence, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding adoption of amendment No. 4406, as modified, the amendment be further modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the adjournment of the Senate, the Record remain open until 1:30 p.m. for the introduction of bills, statements, and cosponsorships.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 2 p.m., Monday, April 7; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that there then be a period of morning business until 3 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 3221, the vehicle for the housing debate, and that Senators have until 3 p.m. Monday to file first-degree amendments.

Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, there will be no rollcall votes during Monday's session of the Senate. However, Senators should be prepared to vote Tuesday morning.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.