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Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for his leadership on our committee and for his leadership in bringing this bill through our committee on a strong bipartisan vote.
I have got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that the House Financial Services Committee just a couple of weeks ago voted out 11 different bills to help American families achieve that coveted goal of financial independence, and part and parcel of that quest, that dream, is the dream of homeownership.
Regrettably, there are some people within this body who believe in bipartisanship more in theory than they do in practice. I regret those who supported a bill before they were against it, but that is where we are here today, Mr. Speaker.
What we are really about here is trying to ensure that low- and moderate-income people do not have their Federal Government protect them out of their homes, and what we have seen is bad and dumb regulation out of Washington do just that.
The goal of consumer protection ought to be to help empower consumers to buy homes they can afford to keep, that we have competitive, transparent, innovative markets that are vigorously policed for forced and fraud and deceptive advertising. That is the vision we have on this side of the aisle, and, frankly, it is at least a vision that some Members on that side of the aisle have as well.
So, Mr. Speaker, this is an incredibly modest--it is still important, but an incredibly modest bill. By definition, if it is bipartisan, it is going to be modest.
I am somewhat shocked that under our rules and procedures that this wouldn't be on the suspension calendar. And in fact, in the last Congress, there wasn't one single vote cast to object to this bill from the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), the chairman of our Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee, a real leader on our committee on housing opportunity for low-and moderate-income Americans--not a single dissenting vote. But I guess that was before, again, the left hand knew what the far left hand was doing. And now, all of a sudden, we have entered yet another fact-free zone and we are having all this incredible verbiage about Wall Street, when all this bill is doing is leveling the playing field between those firms that would be affiliated and those that would not so that consumers can have a few more choices and benefit from lower cost as they try to get their American Dream.
If we followed the logic of the far left, McDonald's could serve you a burger, but they could no longer serve you fries. You would have to go across the street to Burger King for your fries there. I guess National Tire and Battery would have to be ``National Tire.'' They couldn't sell you a battery anymore. Consumers would be protected and not have their choices recognized. I guess the phone company could no longer offer you a discount on Internet and cable and phone put together because, my lord, those are affiliations, Mr. Speaker; and apparently the far left wants to ensure that American consumers are stripped of their economic liberty to make choices for themselves, to be able to get discounts when products are put together. I don't understand it.
We are trying to ensure that low- and moderate-income Americans have convenience, that they have choice, and that they have lower prices. The Truth in Lending Act will apply and should apply. We have to protect consumers against force, fraud, and deception, but we have got to quit protecting consumers right out of their homes.
So again, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga) for doing everything he can to help this segment of our American population. So often we hear the left and far left talk about affordable housing. Once again, it is something they recognize in theory; it is just not anything they want to support in practice.
This is an affordable housing bill. This is an affordable housing bill. Consumers will have choice under this bill, thus, the name. So we know that talk is cheap, but, unfortunately, votes tend to be expensive. This started out as such a bipartisan piece of legislation, but then somebody said: Oh, my Lord, this is a clarification or modification of Dodd-Frank, and Dodd-Frank is something that came down from Mount Sinai. It was chiseled into stone tablets.
Former Chairman Frank, who chaired our committee, doesn't seem to believe that. He came before our committee and testified at least a half a dozen different ideas he had for amending his own signature legislation. Yet there are those on the far left who would hurt the most vulnerable in our society, who would deny them fundamental economic liberties to choose the mortgages they want to allow them their American Dream of homeownership. That is not right. That is not fair. That is not economic justice.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, it is so critical--so critical today--that we support H.R. 685. It was designed to be a bipartisan bill. It should be a bipartisan bill, and I urge every single Member to adopt it.
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