American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008
Floor Speech
AMERICAN HOUSING RESCUE AND FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT OF 2008 -- (Senate - July 11, 2008)
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, later this afternoon the Senate will be voting on two measures. One is the housing bill. We have been working on it for months. The object behind this bill is to find some relief for the thousands of people who will lose their homes today and every day.
About 7,500 Americans will have their homes foreclosed on today, and that has been repeated over and over. We are reaching a housing crisis in this country. It not only affects those who are losing their homes; it affects those of us who live nearby who make our mortgage payments and watch the value of our homes go down because somebody in the neighborhood lost their home, had to put it up for auction, sold it at less than what they wanted to just to get out of the deal. So we need to do something about this housing crisis, not just for the good of those families affected by foreclosure and those living nearby but for the housing industry, which is an important part of our economy.
This housing bill has been around for several weeks. This week alone we had two Republican filibusters slowing down this bill. If there has ever been a time when we shouldn't slow down, when we should move forward with dispatch, it is now. With the state of our economy, with the number of people unemployed, with the costs that a lot of families are facing, this Senate ought to put politics behind, stop these filibusters, move these bills forward, and give our best efforts to try to solve some of the problems facing our country.
The second bill we are going to be voting on is called the PEPFAR bill. This is a bill which relates to a program announced by President Bush.
Now I am on the Democratic side of the aisle. I have sure had my differences with President Bush. However, I can remember his State of the Union Address when he stood up and said: I think the United States should lead the world in fighting the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. I jumped out of my seat to applaud because he was right. I supported the President every year when he came in asking for more money so we could work around the world to deal with the scourge of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. After the first 5 years, the President came back and said: We need a new program, one that takes into account what we are doing around the world and what we need to do in the future. I think he was right.
We basically had two programs going at once, and we were participating more in one--the PEPFAR Program--which was the President's emergency program to deal with this problem. It was the direct aid of the United States to countries around the world--some 15 different countries--where we provide assistance in dealing with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. There is a separate endeavor called the Global Fund, and that really engages the whole world and the rest of the world. We participate in that too. We are part of it.
A lot of people may say: Well, with all of the problems in the United States, why are we spending all of this money overseas? It turns out to be a small fraction of our budget but a very important investment. First, that money spent defines who we are. America is a caring nation. When we read about tragedies around the world, whether it is a hurricane or an earthquake or some other disaster, our people rally to help.
We always have. I am proud of that. I think it says a lot about who we are. There are a lot of people trying to paint an image of America around the world that is very negative, an image most of us here don't even recognize. For a lot of people in the world, all they ever hear is bad news about the United States.
This is part of the good news about the United States. President Bush's initiative to deal with the global AIDS crisis is the right thing to do. It explains who we are and what American values are. It brings the expertise we have in our country to other countries around the world who are, frankly, struggling with a very slow economy or backward economy, and a lot of people are in trouble.
When I first went to Africa a number of years ago, I wasn't looking for a global AIDS epidemic, but I could not avoid it. In every country there I visited, I would see more and more people who were doomed to die because they had been infected--young people, mothers and fathers with children by their side, who knew death was the ultimate result of this disease. There was no place for them to turn. At that point, there weren't any drugs--at least not available to these poor countries. All they were doing was trying to keep people as strong as they could for as long as they could to avoid the fatal onset of these diseases.
Things have changed. They have changed because of the PEPFAR program of President Bush, the global fund program. We are taking therapies now and medications that have kept Americans infected with HIV alive for so many years and sharing them with countries around the world. President Bush comes before us now with this proposal, S. 2731, which wants to reauthorize the global AIDS program. I think it is a good idea. I am a cosponsor. It is a bipartisan bill, led by Senator Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, and Senator Lugar, a Republican from Indiana. It is a bipartisan bill. This bill has been stopped on the floor of the Senate for months. A handful of Senators don't want this bill to move forward for a variety of reasons. If they disagree with this bill, if there is something they wish to change, let them offer an amendment about the bill.
But it turns out, yesterday, when we confronted these Senators and said: What is your problem? What is the amendment you want to offer, they want to offer amendments that have nothing to do with the global AIDS crisis, nothing to do with this bill. That, to me, is unnecessary and unfortunate. We are delaying the passage of this important lifesaving legislation so some Senators can offer amendments that have nothing to do with the subject matter.
I hope they will reconsider. In fact, the Senate being in session this late on a Friday is unusual. We are usually back home by now. But we are here, having spent the whole day waiting for a vote at about 5:20 because one particular Senator--Senator DeMint of South Carolina--objected to moving forward with the vote on this bill either this morning or on Monday. So 100 Senators--at least those of us who are still here--wait patiently for this vote and hope to get home to our families this evening or maybe even tomorrow. I hope we pass the bill. We need 60 votes to do it. If all Senators are present, there are 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans. Even with all the Democrats supporting the President, we need nine Republicans to make this a bipartisan bill, and we should.
The Presiding Officer, Senator Brown of Ohio, has focused a large part of his congressional career in the House and in the Senate on the issue of tuberculosis. He has traveled all around the world and has seen the scourge of the disease and what it has meant to these different nations. We can treat it effectively. If we fail to treat it effectively, it can get complicated and very challenging--this multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, which we read about in the newspapers once in a while and is extremely difficult to treat.
If a person in a developing country is developing tuberculosis, and we can spot it and treat them with very low-cost medicine immediately, we can cure it. If we fail, their condition can worsen and the disease can worsen and more people can be subject to it.
We don't live in a world where public health problems are isolated. The public health problem in Africa today could be the same public health problem in America 2 weeks from now. All it takes is an airplane ride. We have seen that happen before. So when we treat these diseases overseas, we are not only speaking of our values and who we are, we are doing something that is right when it comes to the area of public health.
Critics of the bill have said it goes too far. Let me give you one illustration. They argue, for example, we should not be including in this bill--directed at HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria--nutrition programs. They are wrong. I went to an area of Nairobi, Kenya. It is a slum area, where about 600,000 people are living in very abject circumstances. It is called Canberra. If you saw the movie ``The Constant Gardener,'' I believe it was broadcast--or at least filmed in this slum. They have all the problems you can imagine--public diseases and health problems. Of course, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are found in this slum area. They took me to a section on the outskirts where there were mothers with small children, families. The kids were playing in this courtyard-like area and the mothers were sitting on benches. Most of the mothers looked like they were about to die. I said: Why didn't these mothers, who are suffering from HIV/AIDS, get the drugs they need? They said: Well, they did. Unfortunately, these mothers were suffering from malnutrition. They don't have enough food. They give the food to the kids. Because they don't have enough food to eat, the drugs cannot work. Their systems are so compromised because of their weakness and malnutrition that the drugs don't work.
So to say we are going to send drugs to that slum in Nairobi, Kenya, to cure HIV/AIDS but not food to feed the patients is self-defeating. We would not achieve our goal of saving lives and giving those kids the parents they need for the rest of their lives. A nutrition program is an important part of this effort.
I hope this bill will pass this afternoon, or at least move forward, but we need 60 votes for that to happen. We have to come together and put politics aside. I hope those who wish to offer a variety of amendments relating to other things, and not directly to global AIDS and HIV, will save those battles for another day. I want them to save those battles because that mother in Nairobi is fighting a battle right now; she needs our help. President Bush understands that. Senator Lugar, a Republican leader, understands that, Senator Biden understands that, and the Senate should too.
It is, to me, a bit embarrassing that we have waited this long to bring up this bill of such critical importance to so many millions of people around the world. It is our chance this afternoon to do what is right and move it forward. The sacrifice we have made to stick around and not be with our families this evening, as we hoped to be, is worth it if, at the end of the day, we can pass this important motion, move the legislation forward for a vote early next week.
I salute the occupant of the chair for his leadership on the issues of tuberculosis and many other areas of public health. I know you feel this is the right thing to do. A small investment now can make a big difference in lives around the world. I hope our colleagues will share that view this afternoon when we vote on the motion to proceed to this bill, which is President Bush's plan to deal with the global AIDS crisis.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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