Statement of Senator Barack Obama on the Passage of the Bipartisan Housing Bill
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Printable FormatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:Michael Ortiz, 202 228 5566
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Barack Obama today released the following statement after the Senate passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (H.R. 3221). The motion passed by a vote of 72 to 13:
"I applaud the Senate's passage of urgently needed housing legislation which the President has finally agreed to sign. American communities continue to be battered by rising foreclosures and falling home values and families everywhere are struggling to cope with lost jobs, city and state cutbacks, and higher costs for essentials like food and gas. This bill is an important start to protecting homeowners and restoring stability to our housing market and our economy. It will help prevent hundreds of thousands of home foreclosures, provide critical support to communities that have been hard hit by the housing crisis, and create a badly-needed affordable housing trust fund.
"The bill will also help American families get affordable mortgages on their homes by establishing an emergency financing mechanism for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while establishing an effective regulator for these institutions. It is essential that we continue to monitor these arrangements to make sure that the regulator has teeth and that the financing mechanism not end up being used in a manner that simply bails out shareholders or management at taxpayersÂ’ expense.
"We cannot forget, though, that even with the passage of this bill the work of repairing our economy is far from over and that this bill will take time to start working. Nearly a million families have faced foreclosure just since this bill was announced, and the economy has lost jobs for six straight months. Washington should immediately get to work on a second stimulus package to bring relief to struggling families and help jumpstart a long-awaited economic recovery."