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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and other Members, including Mr. Dennis Cardoza of California and Mr. Jim Costa of California, as a way to awaken HUD from its cavalier slumber. Essentially what we do is we take away HUD's travel budget. The idea is that we want HUD to be aggressive in doing mortgage workouts, not traveling all around the world at taxpayer expense.
Our Nation must aggressively confront the continuing hemorrhage of mortgage foreclosures and dead real estate markets across this country. We have not hit bottom in that market yet as the crisis spreads from toxic subprime mortgages to solid mortgages held by the middle class. But where is HUD? Housing workouts are impossible without them.
We know that Wall Street committed the perfect crime, executing the largest transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street by washing out our middle class--over 7.5 million families are scheduled to lose their homes--and then putting their bills, any losses that the Big Six had up there on Wall Street, right back on our taxpayers, and then being reimbursed by our taxpayers 100 cents on the dollar. Wall Street's six megabanks, and we all know the names--Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC--control two-thirds of the wealth in our country now, including mortgages twisted up in the moral hazard of securitization. Wall Street continues to be rewarded as we stand here today and our citizens are disgorged from their homes .
Rather than let HUD staff use our public dollars to travel to places like Rio de Janeiro, when people in our country are working so hard to try to work out these mortgages and the banks aren't answering the telephones, let HUD use all of its power and authority to bring the worst offenders and their buddies to focus their staff on doing mortgage workouts in places like Toledo, Ohio, Cleveland, Boise, Idaho, Las Vegas, Sacramento. We ought to be doing mortgage workouts, not taking what look like vacations to Rio de Janeiro.
So I think our amendment is very straightforward. It basically sends a strong volley over to HUD. It asks them to do their job, to be aggressive, and to really help us, as the American people, to resolve this tremendous housing foreclosure crisis that is eating away at communities from coast to coast and spreading as we stand here today.
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Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the remaining time.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank Congressman Cardoza, who really has lived this mortgage foreclosure hell with the people of his region. I also thank Congressman McNerney, Congressman Costa, and all of these Members from California who have stood up here today to try to put the brake on over there at HUD and say, ``Hey, wait a minute. Pay attention to what is happening across California,'' and I must say across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Idaho--all of these States where the middle class is being washed out and where our money and our equity from our homes is being transferred to Wall Street, which now controls two-thirds--six banks--of the wealth of this country.
Something is fundamentally wrong. HUD has to stand up and do its job. We offer our amendment in all good faith, and we just say to Secretary Geithner over at Treasury: Wait until the Treasury bill comes on the floor. There is more to come.
I want to thank the chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee for his graciousness and willingness to work with us as we stand up for Americans who are facing foreclosure.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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