Requiring a Report Setting Forth the Global Strategy of the United State to Combat and Defeat Al Qaeda and Its Affiliates--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

REQUIRING A REPORT SETTING FORTH THE GLOBAL STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES TO COMBAT AND DEFEAT AL QAEDA AND ITS AFFILIATES--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - February 28, 2008)

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FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I rise this afternoon in support of the Foreclosure Prevention Act because we have to take action now to help so many families in this country who have been hurt in the mortgage and credit crisis.

The bill that we will hopefully vote to move to shortly is going to help provide the resources to keep our families in their homes, help our communities recover from this foreclosure crisis, and help struggling businesses to weather this shaky economy. The bill we will consider going to will provide some commonsense solutions to help address the problems that are at the heart of our country's economic woes. It is an opportunity finally for us to invest in our communities now so we can prevent millions of families from going into foreclosure.

I wish to share with the body quickly a story of a constituent from my home State, a man named Clifford, who lives in Olympia and who let me know about what happened to him, which is happening to so many Americans. He thought he had achieved the American dream by owning a home. His home, he said, represented stability to him. It was his investment in his future. But he, similar to many Americans, lost his job in a factory. The bills started stacking up. The stress wore on him and his family. His wife, who had diabetes, got sick and she had to have surgery. Before he knew it he was several months behind in his mortgage.

Suddenly, all his dreams for a secure future evaporated.

He told me how he struggled to work with his mortgage company and he couldn't catch up. Eventually, he made a phone call to Consumer Counseling Northwest, and through the help of that counseling, he was able to get his payments reduced with his mortgage company, get back on track, and keep his family home.

That is why in this bill we are going to vote on, we have included critical funding for housing counseling that will allow our families across the country to make a phone call--not to their mortgage company to say I can't pay my bill but to a housing counselor who can sit down with them and their family to get their finances back in order so they do not have to go to foreclosure.

We know the housing crisis is impacting millions of families. In fact, experts tell us it may impact as many as 2 million families in this coming year alone. We can help prevent that if we can give these families a place to go, a counselor to help them, and the ability to be able to manage their finances.

Why is it so important? Not just for those families who lose all their wealth and their home if they have to foreclose but for the neighborhood: So their home doesn't become a blight in the neighborhood, losing the value in the rest of the homes; so their community and neighborhood is safe and so we are strengthening the economy.

These and many other provisions we will hear about as my colleagues talk about this bill are critical. We cannot wait for another year. We can't wait and see what happens in June or September or December. We need to act now, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to vote with us for cloture to move to the housing bill we are proposing today--the Foreclosure Prevention Act--so we can begin the process to help families stay in their homes.

I yield the floor.

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