NSP Termination Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 861, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program Termination Act. The program has been ill-fated from the start. It has been plagued with problems. We have given almost $7 billion into a program that has yet to work. HUD was slow in getting the money out the door. Poor reporting has hampered our ability to even measure what has been happening on the program.
Further, the NSP simply acts as a taxpayer bailout for risky lenders, servicers and real estate speculators who bet on the housing market and now can't sell their properties. It has become an even bigger example of those people who believe that the government is the solution to the problems. Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem.
We are spending $3.5 trillion in our annual government spending, and we are bringing in $2.2 trillion. Next year we are going to have a deficit of $1.6 trillion; and it is composed of programs exactly like this, programs that do no good, that don't really cause the market to cure itself, and instead taxpayers pay the bill for people who have been speculating and people who just want out.
I had a friend in the office today who talked about his situation with a house in Tucson where he got in at a higher price than it should have been. He was willing to settle for a lesser amount. He was willing to pay. But because the bank could go to the government and make up the difference, they did not have to negotiate with this individual homeowner. Instead, this program causes lenders to say, the taxpayer will make us whole and we are not going to take our losses.
The market will cure the problems we face if we allow the markets to work, but this government program does not allow the market to work. This Nation is dying for jobs, and it is government spending, government regulation and government taxation that are causing the jobs to be killed and to be sent out of this country.
If we will get our focus correct on lowering taxes, lowering the regulatory environment, especially to lenders who would be out lending now except they are afraid to because of the regulatory environment, we would begin to create jobs for the first time in a long time.
With 9 percent unemployment, it is time for us to cure the problems of the economy, to quit spending on wasteful programs, and to give this country a leg up on prosperity. That is the thing we are missing right now.
The hope of prosperity for the middle class is gone, and it is because of programs like this soaking the taxpayer and giving money to people who probably could do something different. It is not fixing up any neighborhood. I don't see the reports in any magazine or newspaper telling us of the flock of people moving to these rehabilitated neighborhoods.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I rise to express support for H.R. 861.
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