Saint Cloud Times - Coleman's Your Turn: I'm Ready to Continue Helping Minnesotans

Op-Ed

By Norm Coleman

Folks in St. Cloud and across the state don't need politicians to tell them we are facing serious economic challenges these days. From high energy prices to a volatile credit market, we are in the midst of very challenging economic times- among the most challenging I have seen in my 30 years of public service.

Certainly, one of the greatest challenges we face is in the area of housing. As the headlines and statistics show, the housing crisis has hit Minnesotans hard — particularly folks in Central Minnesota. Behind these statistics are the families and individuals — many of whom I've heard from firsthand — who have lost their homes or are watching their equity being driven down by the rising tide of foreclosures.

I believe it is in our economic interest to help stabilize the housing market by preventing unnecessary foreclosures from occurring, encouraging home buying, and ensuring the health of the mortgage market. Home ownership builds prosperity and strengthens communities. And when home ownership suffers, entire families and entire communities suffer.

To that end, I have fought tirelessly to draw attention to this crisis and to implement reforms and assistance that will help struggling homeowners and communities stem the tide of foreclosures. And while there is no single silver bullet to addressing this crunch, we have taken serious steps to help address the current crisis, and prevent a similar one from happening in the future.

Most notably, I worked hard to enact the bipartisan housing reform legislation passed by Congress and signed into law at the end of the July. This bill provided a number of key housing priorities I have identified and worked hard to include.

For homeowners facing the threat of foreclosure, the bill included a "Hope for Homeowners" provision, which created a voluntary and temporary program to allow borrowers in danger of their homes an opportunity to refinance into lower-cost mortgages they can afford. The best part is this program will protect taxpayers. Rather than allow a bailout, the program instead requires lenders to take a hit and homeowners to share any profits with the federal government. The provision alone is estimated to keep at least 400,000 families from losing their homes - which will also help stabilize the housing market and protect neighboring home values.

Additionally, this bill included one of my key priorities by providing $4 billion in Community Development Block Grant funding for communities to limit the negative impact of the housing crisis. This mirrored legislation I put forward last year, and, as a former mayor, I know how critical this assistance will be for communities in need.

Beyond these important measures, the bill also provided greater housing counseling and established a temporary first-time homebuyer tax credit to help encourage home ownership. Additionally, the legislation provided much needed and important reform that will help ensure that Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. operate on a safer and sounder basis in the future, as well as Federal Housing Administration reforms to enable more homeowners access to safe, fixed-rate mortgages. The bill also put in place a number of important provisions to ensure greater transparency and disclosure requirements for mortgages to help prevent future abuses from happening in the future.

I was especially proud the final bill included my veterans foreclosure relief proposal — which triples the grace period that returning servicemembers have to deal with any mortgage problems they may have encountered while serving our country. Our service members and their families have sacrificed so much on behalf of every one of us that I fought tirelessly to include this provision in the bill.

By passing this legislation, we are taking an important step toward limiting further damage to our economy and communities and helping to lay the foundation for a recovery.

Looking forward, there is certainly more work to be done to address the economic challenges we face. As we in Congress work to address the challenges facing our financial system this week, I will be working to ensure that, above all, any plan protects taxpayers — and does not reward corporate executives on Wall Street who created our current problems. We need to eliminate any "golden parachutes," the outlandish compensation packages for outgoing executives, and demand that there will be no blank check in the final plan.

During my 30 years of public service to Minnesota, we have faced and addressed several great challenges. Today, we face a similar challenge when it comes to strengthening our economy and continuing to address the housing crunch. Real solutions will take an ability to work with folks from both sides of the political aisle. That's what I've been doing and that's I'll continue to do on this and every other issue important to Minnesotans.

This is the opinion of Norm Coleman, the Republican endorsed in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race.

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