Transportation, Housing And Urban Development, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 - Conference Report - Resumed

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I hope the Senator from South Carolina won't leave. He would not yield for a question. I want to address his remarks, and some of them are not accurate. I don't want him to feel that I am saying this outside of his presence.

I ask the Senator from South Carolina, while he has a few minutes, if he could look in the bill and find the provision in the bill that kills the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Please present it to me now, because it is not there. It is not there.

The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is a voucher program, created more than 5 years ago. It was authorized through the Appropriations Committee, not through formal authorization. As many as 1,700 students in DC ended up going to school and getting about $7,500 a year to help pay the tuition for their schools. The program has diminished in size--I will concede that--even though I tried in a debate and negotiations to change that. It is down to about 1,300 students. It is funded in this bill to the tune of $13.2 million.

So for the Senator from South Carolina to stand up and say, as he did, that this program is killed, how does he explain the $13.2 million in the bill?

Mr. DeMINT. If the Senator will yield, the President has said he is going to end this program.

Mr. DURBIN. Does this bill end it?

Mr. DeMINT. I will come to the floor to explain the technical aspects of why it is not.

Mr. DURBIN. I am anxious to hear it. Explain all the technical aspects you would like, but the fact is that $13.2 million goes to the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. And the 1,300 students currently in the program will be protected and will receive the tuition--a grant of $7,500 per student--in the coming year. That is a fact. To stand there and say otherwise is wrong.

Mr. DeMINT. You grandfather it in--if the Senator will yield for a question, does this bill fund the continuation of the program beyond the 1,300 who are already in it?

Mr. DURBIN. No. It limits the program to 1,300.

Mr. DeMINT. It kills the program then.

Mr. DURBIN. No. If they are why----

Mr. DeMINT. But the program will not continue.

Mr. DURBIN. Reclaiming my time. What happens is this program next year will be up going through the Senate and the House of Representatives. For the Senator from South Carolina to misrepresent the contents of the bill is not fair.

Secondly, this idea of government funding abortion, let me say to the Senator from South Carolina, here are the basic pillars on this controversial issue in America. First, the Supreme Court has said abortion is a legal procedure in Roe v. Wade.

Second, Congress said, through the Hyde amendment, that we will spend no Federal funds for abortion except in cases involving the life of the mother, rape, and incest.

Third, Congress said any provider--hospital, doctor, medical professional--who in good conscience cannot participate in an abortion procedure will never be compelled to do so.

This bill doesn't change that at all. In the Senator's State of South Carolina and in my State of Illinois, the leadership of the States--the Governor and the legislature--decide what they will spend their State funds on. That is done in States across the United States. Seventeen States have decided they will have State funds pay for abortions beyond the Hyde amendment. It is their State's decision, not our decision in DC. We, in this bill, give them the same authority that the State of South Carolina has and the State of Illinois has. No Federal funds from the government, from Congress, can be spent on this exercise or use of funds for abortions beyond the Hyde amendment. But if they choose to use their own funds--just as South Carolina and Illinois make their choice--then they make that decision.

Many in Congress have a secret yearning to be mayors of the District of Columbia. They want to be on the city council--not just in the Senate. They want to make every finite decision for the 500,000 or 600,000 people who live here.

Mr. DeMINT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DURBIN. Not at this time. When I finish, I will. The people who live here in DC are taxpaying citizens. They pay their taxes and they vote for President. They send their young men and women off to war just like every State in the Union. I think they are entitled to some of the basic rights we enjoy in each of our own States.

I also want to say a word about the needle exchange program. I get nervous around needles. I don't like to run in to the doctor and say give me another shot. So taking an issue like this on is not a lot of fun to start with. Why are we talking about needle exchange programs in the District of Columbia? For one simple reason: The HIV/AIDS infection rate in the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, the Nation's Capital, is the highest in the Nation. We are living in a city with the highest incidence of needle-related HIV/AIDS and meningitis and other things that follow. A needle exchange program says to those who are addicted: Come to a place where they can at least put you in touch with someone who can counsel you and help move you off your addiction, and they will give you a clean needle instead of a dirty one. I hate it, and I wish we didn't need it. I don't like it. But in States across the Nation they make the decision that this is the humane and thoughtful thing to do to finally bring addicts in before they infect other people and spread this epidemic.

The doctors are the ones who tell us this works. States make the decisions on it. I think the District of Columbia, facing the highest incidence of infection from HIV/AIDS, should also make that same decision in terms of the money they spend. The provision that came over from the House of Representatives would have limited the distribution of this program to virtually a handful of places in DC. We said that DC can make the rules about where the safe places are for these needle exchange programs.

As I said, I hate to even consider the prospect, but I cannot blind myself to the reality that we have this high incidence of infection in the District of Columbia, and the medical professionals tell us this is working. We are bringing addicts in. We are bringing them into a safer situation. We are counseling some of them beyond their addiction. We are saving lives.

Am I supposed to turn my back on that and say, I am sorry, it offends me to think of this concept? It offends me to think of people dying needlessly, and that is why we have this program.

Let me say a word about the DC Public Schools. I did not ask to take this DC appropriations bill on. This is not something I ran for in the House of Representatives or the Senate. But it is part of my responsibility. This is a great city with great problems, but there are some shining lights on the horizon, and one of them is Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the public school system in the District of Columbia.

Michelle is an amazing story of a young woman attending Cornell University. She decided, when she graduated, to sign up for one of the top employers of college graduates in America today, Teach for America. She went off and taught in Baltimore. She took a hopeless classroom situation and in 2 years turned it around. Kids from the neighborhood had test scores nobody dreamed of because of Michelle's skill. She worked in New York, bringing nontraditional teachers into the teaching situation and then was asked to be chancellor here.

She is working on an overall reform for the DC Public Schools, which I endorse. It is a reform which will move us toward pay for performance, where those teachers who do a good job and improve test scores are rewarded. It is a voluntary program for teachers. The results are starting to show. This week in the District of Columbia, they reported math scores that showed dramatic improvements compared to cities around the Nation.

She has another responsibility: while 45,000 kids are in the public schools of DC, 28,000 are enrolled in public, but independent, charter schools. The charter schools have to match the performance of the public schools or improve upon them. It is the same for the voucher schools, the DC opportunity scholarships.

The Senator from South Carolina stands before us to say I eliminate the program. Where does that $13.2 million go? It goes to the program, the DC opportunity scholarships. I did change the program. I changed the program because I failed initially when I offered amendments.

Here are some of the changes I made, and you be the judge as to whether these are unreasonable changes.

I said for the voucher schools--half of them are Catholic schools--I said for the voucher schools, every teacher in basic core subjects has to have a college degree. How about that for a radical idea, a teacher with a college degree? It is now required. It was not before.

Second, the buildings they teach in--these DC voucher schools have to pass the fire safety code. Is that a radical idea killing the program? If it means closing a school that is dangerous, sure, I would close that school in a second before I would send my child or grandchild there.

Third, we said, if you attend a DC voucher school, the students there have to take the same tests as the DC Public Schools so we can compare how you are doing. If you take a different test, you have different results. We are never going to have a true comparison.

I also added in here, at the suggestion of Senator LAMAR ALEXANDER of Tennessee, a former Secretary of Education, that each of the DC voucher schools either has to be accredited or seeking accreditation. I don't think that is radical. I don't think it closes a program.

The final thing I say is, the people who administer this program have to actually physically visit the school at least twice a year. We had a hearing where the administrator of the program was shown pictures of some of these DC voucher schools and, frankly, he said: We have not been there. Maybe once a year we get by. It has to be more than that. We have to make sure these schools are functioning and operating. We are sending millions of Federal dollars into them. We expect it at public schools, we expect it at charter schools. Should we not ask the same of the DC voucher schools?

I say this, at least those in the Archdiocese of Washington agreed to these things and have said: For our Catholic schools, we are ready to meet these standards and tests. My hat is off to them. It is a challenge, I am sure, but it is one I think they will meet. I want them to continue to do that.

I did try to expand this program in one aspect in the course of our negotiations, with Senator Collins' assistance, so siblings would be allowed to attend this program. I think it would be helpful. We were not successful. There are those opposed to this altogether.

I say the Senator from South Carolina has mischaracterized the DC voucher program. He has not fully explained that we have not changed the Hyde amendment, which prohibits Federal funds for abortion purposes, other than strict narrow categories. He went on to say something about the needle exchange program, which does not reflect the reality and the gravity of the health crisis facing the District of Columbia.

This is not a radical bill. This is a bill which I think is in the mainstream of America. It is a bill consistent with the same laws that apply in his State of South Carolina and my State of Illinois and most other States across the Nation.

I wish we were not in this paternalistic position in relation to the District of Columbia. I would rather this city had home rule, had its own Members of Congress, could make its own decisions. That is my goal. I would like to see that happen. In the meantime, I think we should treat the people who live here fairly, give them a chance to deal with their significant problems, acknowledge success, as we just reported in the public schools, and try to help them where we can.

This is, in fact, a great city and the capital of a great nation. I think the mayor does a good job.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak as in morning business.

I would like to say at the outset I respect very much my colleague from the State of Kansas. He and I have worked on many issues together. In fact, we traveled together to Africa, a memorable trip for both of us, I am sure, visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and meeting a lot of people in desperate straits. I thank him for that.

I know he is now preparing for another public career in the State of Kansas, with the blessing of the Kansas voters. But in the meantime, he continues to be a very important, vital voice in the Senate. I thank him for that as well.

We do disagree on health care reform. I know he has had a chance to explain his point of view. I will say I disagree with many of his conclusions about what we are about, what we are trying to accomplish.

This is the bill that is before us when we return to the health care reform debate. It is 2,074 pages long. It is the product of 1 year's work by two major committees in the Senate. The House of Representatives spent a similar period of time in three different committees working on it to come up with their work product, which they passed just a few weeks ago.

This is historic because we have been promising this and threatening this and talking about this for decades. It was Theodore Roosevelt who first raised the question about whether America could accept the challenge of providing health care for every citizen. That was over 100 years ago. Then, of course, Harry Truman, who, in a more modern era, issued the same challenge. He was confronted by his critics who said: He is talking about socializing medicine. Must be socialism that Harry Truman is proposing. The idea died.

Then, again, Lyndon Johnson raised it in the early 1960s. He was a master of the Senate, as he has been characterized in a book that has been written about him. He believed he had the power to make this happen to deal with the health care system across the board in America. It turned out he made a significant contribution with the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid but could not reach the goal of universal health care or comprehensive health care reform.

This President, President Obama, came to us and issued the same challenge. He said we have reached a point of no return. The current health care system in America is unsustainable, it is unaffordable, and the cost of health care goes up dramatically. Ten years ago, a family of four paid an average of $6,000 a year, $500 a month for health care insurance. Now that is up to twice that amount, $12,000 average for a family of four, $1,000 a month. In 8 years, with projected increases in costs, we expect that the monthly premium for the family of four to go up to $2,000 a month, $24,000 a year. We know that represents 40 percent of earnings for many people. That is absolutely unsustainable.

What we have tried to do, first and foremost, is address affordability. How can we make health insurance protection more affordable for more families? How can we start lessening the annual increase in premiums and actually help people by substantially cutting the cost of premiums for many families? It is a big challenge, and we have, I think, risen to the challenge with this bill.

The other side of the aisle has ideas, they have amendments, they have speeches, they have charts, but they do not have a comprehensive health care reform bill. They do not have a bill that has been sent over to the Congressional Budget Office, carefully read, and evaluated. It took weeks to do it. They do not have a bill that came back from the Congressional Budget Office, considered to be the neutral observer of action on Capitol Hill. They do not have a bill that came back from the CBO that has been characterized as actually reducing the deficit.

This bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will reduce America's deficit over the next 10 years by $130 billion and over the following 10 years another $650 billion. It is not just dealing with health care reform; it is dealing with the costs of health care to our government and reducing our expenditures by significant amounts. It is the largest deficit-reduction bill ever considered on the floor of the Senate.

Although the Republicans have many ideas, they do not have anything that matches this bill in terms of deficit reduction or bringing down the cost of health care. They have not produced a bill which will extend the reach of health insurance coverage to 94 percent of our people in this country, which this bill does.

For the first time in the history of the United States of America, 94 percent of our American citizens will have peace of mind knowing they have health insurance. Today, 50 million do not. This bill will take 30 million off the uninsured rolls and put them in insurance plans that can protect their families, and it will help them pay for the premiums. If people are making less than 400 percent of poverty--which in layman's terms is about $80,000 a year in income. If your family makes $80,000 or less, we provide in this bill that we will help you pay for your premiums. The lower your income, the more we will help pay.

If you are making, for example, as an individual, less than $14,000 a year, you will not pay for your health care. It will be covered by Medicaid, the program that is now nationwide, and you will not have to pay a premium. Then as you make more money, you will pay a little bit of a premium with help from this bill.

The Republicans have not produced a plan of any kind that deals with helping families of limited means, modest means, pay for their health insurance premiums. We have. The Congressional Budget Office has scored it. One of the major provisions in this bill--and one I think most people will identify with quickly--is the fact that health insurance reform is included too. There is a Patients' Bill of Rights in this bill. It basically says we should bring an end to the discriminatory practices of health insurance companies against American citizens. We know what we are talking about.

Friends of mine, a family I am closer to than any other family in Springfield, IL, has a son fighting cancer. He is a young man in his forties. He has young children in high school. He was diagnosed with melanoma just a few years ago. His oncologist has worked with him with chemotherapy and radiation and with the kind of treatment and drugs and surgeries he needed. As a result of it, he has gone through some tough surgeries and tough treatment. His oncologist said at one point: We have a drug we believe will help you. He gave him the drug, and the drug, in fact, arrested the development of his cancer.

Shortly after the drug was prescribed and administered, his health insurance company that he paid into for years came back and said: We will not cover that drug. The drug costs $12,000 a month. It is impossible for him, as the coach of a baseball team at one of our universities, to come up with that kind of money. His family borrowed money to pay for one of the treatments, and now they are suing the insurance company in the hopes that they can get coverage.

After all those years paying in, when they finally needed that coverage, they turned him down. I hope he wins that lawsuit. This is a very profitable insurance company. It is a company that should be paying, but they are not. That is one example of thousands we could talk about.

The purpose of this bill is to make sure a friend of mine, his family, and other families just like his have a fighting chance against these insurance companies. We say in this bill we are going to provide a way for protection for people with a preexisting condition; that if you have a history of high cholesterol or high blood pressure, if you have some cancer in your family, it is not going to disqualify you. You are still going to be eligible for health insurance, a policy you can afford.

We also say, when it comes to your children--you know how it is today, you learn the hard way--when your kids who are on the family plan reach the age of 24, they are off. We extend that to age 26, which I think is a little more peace of mind, particularly for students graduating from college looking for jobs these days. It is not easy. We want to make sure they are covered with health insurance while they are paying off their student loans and building their career. That is in this bill.

There is not a bill from the Republican side of the aisle that deals with the Patients' Bill of Rights. In fact, it is a rare Senator on the other side of the aisle who even stands and is critical of health insurance companies in the way they are treating people in this country.

I do not know if my friends on the other side of the aisle get back home enough to meet with some of these families. Surely they do. They must receive mail that tells them about these stories we have all heard about. You would think they would be endorsing our approach in this bill. Instead, they are critical of it from start to finish.

They talk a lot about taxes. I want you to know, under this bill, if you have a small business with 25 or fewer employees, we actually provide tax breaks to help you provide insurance for your employees. There are a lot of businesses, mom-and-pop businesses, for example, that cannot afford health insurance that will have a chance now because of tax breaks here.

Then, when it comes to paying for premiums, I mentioned earlier, if you make $80,000 or less, we provide tax breaks in helping you pay for it. The cost of it in tax breaks is $440 billion over 10 years. It is a huge amount of money we are providing to American citizens to give them a chance to pay for their health insurance premiums. All we hear from the other side is: Oh, this bill is going to raise taxes. It does raise some. It raises taxes on health insurance companies for what we call Cadillac health care policies.

We can debate for a long time whether that level of policy, $25,000, is a reasonable level or should be something different. But the fact is, it is a tax on the health insurance company. It will likely result in fewer policies that are that grand and that expansive being issued.

I think this is a bill that moves in the right direction. It is a bill that makes insurance more affordable. It is a bill that does not increase the deficit, it reduces it. It is a bill that gives people a fighting chance against health insurance companies that discriminate against their customers. It is a bill that extends the coverage of health insurance of 94 percent of Americans. It is a bill that looks at putting Medicare on sound footing. It adds 5 years of solvency to Medicare--5 years. There has not been a bill produced on the other side of the aisle that even adds 1 year, that I am aware of. It adds 5 more years of solvency. That is the reason why this bill has been supported by the American Association of Retired Persons. We have support of medical professionals, senior organizations, and consumer groups all across America. They know, as we do, we cannot wait any longer.

I also wish to make the point that the Senate bill offers significant savings for seniors. The CMS Actuary projects a net $469 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings over 10 years, slightly more than the Congressional Budget Office. It extends the life of the Medicare trust fund, according to the Office of the Actuary, by 9 years. That is longer than anyone has projected in previous forecasts, but it is a significant increase, almost doubling the life of the Medicare trust fund over what it currently would be.

It reduces premiums by $12.50 a month by the year 2019 or $300 per couple per year. Slowing Medicare growth will lower health care costs for seniors as well as younger Americans. Not only will there be a premium savings, but coinsurance will fall as well.

The Senate bill slows the growth of health care costs. The Actuary report we have, for example, says, `` ..... Reductions in Medicare payment updates for providers, the actions of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board, and the excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance would have a significant downward impact on future health care cost growth rates.''

The bend in the health care cost curve is evident. Health care costs under the Senate bill begin to decline as cost savings begin to kick in.

I have not mentioned this bill focuses on prevention and wellness too. If there is one thing we need, it is to encourage people to take care of themselves and to get a helping hand for the tests they need to stay healthy and to monitor their conditions. This preventive care and wellness, though we have not been credited by the Congressional Budget Office, is an important element of this bill.

I think there is one thing on which we should all agree. The cost of health care, particularly for small businesses, is very difficult. On the Senate floor, both Democrats and my friends on the other side of the aisle have recognized small businesses are struggling to pay for health insurance. But there is a real difference. We have offered a solution, one that is comprehensive and one that has been scored and carefully analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office.

Unfortunately, that has not happened on the other side. Their approach is basically to criticize what we have proposed but to offer no alternative.

If they are happy with the current system, I understand that. If they will concede that it is hard to produce a bill like this, I would understand that. But merely to criticize this without alternative, a comprehensive alternative that has been carefully analyzed, I don't think is a responsible approach to the serious problem that we face today.

There are real-life stories of people who have contacted me. One of them I will tell you about involves a small business. Right now we know that one sick employee of a small business can drive the cost of health care for the whole company to limits where they just can't afford it. My friends, Martha and Harry Burrows, whom I have met, are small business owners in Chicago, and they have to wrestle with this problem and try to run a successful business at the same time. When they opened their toy store, Timeless Toys, 16 years ago, they promised to provide health insurance to their full-time employees. Martha Burrows said:

Since we were covered, we wanted to offer the same benefit to our employees.

But as their health care premiums have skyrocketed with leaps of more than 20 percent at a time, the commitment has taken its toll on their business. Providing health insurance to their full-time staff of seven meant cuts not only to profits but also to the wages of their employees. In general, the older employees faced even higher costs. We shouldn't put our Nation's employers in a position where the health costs of an older worker can make such a huge difference.

Marcia says:

I don't like making decisions that way. I want to base hiring decisions on the quality of the person.

The legislation on the floor, incidentally, deals with the rating of premium costs for senior citizens, for example, and makes a fairer rating system. Currently, health insurance companies in America are exempt from the antitrust laws. Under a bill known as McCarran-Ferguson, passed in the 1940s, they are exempt, along with organized baseball, which means the insurance companies--health insurance companies and others--can literally sit down in a room and conspire, collude, agree on prices they are going to charge. If any other companies that were supposed to be competing did that in America they would be sued but not the insurance companies. So they can set premiums and agree on what the premiums will be, and they can divide up the market for the sale of their products, sending some companies to one town and some to another, making sure they do not compete against one another.

That is the reality of health insurance today. What we provide in this bill is protection against the ratings which discriminate against people because they are elderly or because they are women. We put limits to the rating differences that will be allowed in health insurance policies. There is no bill I know of from the Republican side that even considers or addresses that problem.

Mr. President, one of the issues that I have tried to focus on in the midst of this recession is our foreclosure crisis. Back in December of 2006, when the housing markets were humming along and the bankers and brokers were raking in money, the Center for Responsible Lending published a report called ``Losing Ground.'' That report, in December of 2006, estimated that nearly 2 million homes would be lost to foreclosure in the coming years due largely to shoddy subprime mortgages.

Here is what the Mortgage Bankers Association told the Washington Post when they heard of this study. It was authored by the Center for Responsible Lending.

The report is `wildly pessimistic' because most homeowners have prime loans and are not at financial risk.

That is what a senior economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association said in December of 2006. He went on to say:

The subprime market is a small part of the overall market. Lending industry officials have said that regulatory action could injure the subprime market.

When he speaks of regulatory action, he means regulating these subprime markets.

On the floor of the Senate, I was involved in a debate with a Senator from Texas named Phil Gramm. I offered an amendment to a bankruptcy bill which Senator Grassley and I worked on which said: If you are guilty of predatory lending, you will be precluded in bankruptcy from pursuing your claim. That was debated on the Senate floor, and debating on the other side against my amendment was Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who said on the floor of the Senate:

If the Durbin amendment passes, it will destroy the subprime mortgage market.

Well, my amendment failed by one vote, and the subprime mortgage market continued until it collapsed just a couple of years ago. I wish I had had another vote for my amendment.

At the time this debate took place in December of 2006, about 25 percent of home loans were subprime. So the mortgage bankers, unfortunately, misled the public about the state of the market at the time to wave away warnings about any crisis that might be following, and we all know what that has meant to this country.

I go back to that episode now because 3 years later, in 2009, we have had more than 2 million foreclosures, something the Mortgage Bankers Association said wouldn't happen. In fact, the Mortgage Bankers Association has recently announced that in the third quarter of this year, nearly one in seven families paying mortgages in this country were either behind on their payments or already in foreclosure--one out of seven people holding mortgages today. It is hard to imagine. That is the highest it has ever been.

The statement from the Mortgage Bankers Association said:

Despite the recession ending in mid-summer, the decline in mortgage performance continues.

Three years ago, the rosy scenario they painted has now morphed into a much more serious situation which they cannot ignore. I have been talking about this foreclosure crisis since early in 2007. I stand here with some regret and say it is getting worse.

In Illinois, foreclosure filings in the six-county region around Chicago went up 67 percent in the last quarter. This isn't just a problem for the city of Chicago. New filings in Cook County, mainly suburban areas, were down 4.6 percent last quarter. The problem, unfortunately, has migrated to the suburbs. All of the so-called ``collar counties'' around Chicago have experienced massive increases in foreclosure activity. Kane County, a near-in county to the city of Chicago, saw foreclosure filings increase 97 percent in the last quarter over a comparable period last year.

I know the administration is working on this. The Home Affordable Modification Program is helping some families. I know Treasury has stepped up naming and shaming and hoping that it will provide more data for the public on which banks are actually trying. Some are--not much but some are. Many are not trying at all to renegotiate mortgages for people facing foreclosure. But no matter how much the Treasury Department leans on these bankers, the big banks that service most of these troubled mortgages have simply not stepped up to the plate.

Treasury reported yesterday that 3.3 million families are eligible for the Home Affordable Modification Program. Those are the families who are at least 2 months behind on their mortgages and in serious risk of being thrown out in the street. How many families, based on this 3.3 million families eligible for this program, have been able to get a bank to commit to a permanent loan modification that will keep them in their homes? There were 31,000 out of 3.3 million; less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the families in trouble have been able to work out a permanent solution with their bankers. That is disgraceful.

The big banks that created this mess continue to stand in the way of cleaning it up. They are making billions of dollars while foreclosing on millions of American families. Shaming the banks with speeches on the floor of the Senate isn't going to work. We have learned the hard way that many banks are beyond embarrassment. You can't embarrass bankers who take billions of taxpayer dollars to stay solvent and to overcome their bad banking policies, then turn around and pay millions out in bonuses to the officers of the same banks. You can't publicly shame bankers into doing something when they simply don't care.

But let's be clear. Congress hasn't done its part either. We have not done enough to make these banks help the American people who need some help. I will continue to come to the floor to remind my colleagues that we must address this crisis far more aggressively than we have, and I will continue to look for ways to help.

One last statistic. The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story recently highlighting that one in four homeowners who are paying a mortgage today owes more on their mortgage than their house is worth. One in four homeowners is making house payments on a home that is now underwater. If you owe more than your house is worth and have no extra cash lying around, you are really vulnerable. If there is a sickness in your family, a health care emergency, a job loss, you could lose your home. If you are underwater, you are likely to stay there.

The 10.7 million families who find their mortgages are higher than the value of their homes are at serious risk of foreclosure. Over 400,000 of those families are at risk in my home State of Illinois. JPMorgan Chase estimates that home prices won't hit bottom until next year, so it is going to get worse before it gets better.

So do we stand idly by and watch this--watch people lose their life's savings and their homes, watch these boarded-up homes spring up across our neighborhoods, around towns large and small across America and shake our heads and say it is inevitable? We don't have to. What we have to do is lean on these banks legally, with new laws that put pressure on them to make a difference. Don't appeal to their better nature. We have tried that, and it didn't work. We have to use the law. We have to stand up for this economy and putting it back on its feet, and we have to make the point of saying to these bankers that they have to negotiate these mortgages.

We need to do our part in the Senate. As we focus on health care and jobs and the state of the economy, let's not lose sight of this foreclosure crisis that is devastating neighborhoods across the country. The economy will struggle to fully recover until more families are confident enough in their homes that they are willing to go out and go shopping again. We must do more.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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