Honk if You're Paying My Mortgage

Floor Speech

HONK IF YOU'RE PAYING MY MORTGAGE -- (House of Representatives - March 17, 2009)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I have been asked to present more than 6,000 postcards that were generated by the Armstrong and Getty radio show to protest policies that can best be described by the new bumper sticker ``Honk if You're Paying My Mortgage'' or today's reprise ``Honk if You're Paying AIG's Bonuses.''

These postcards represent the first stirring of the public against some of the excesses that we are seeing out of this administration on the mortgage issue.

Rick Santelli of CNBC struck a nerve last month when he asked, ``How many of you want to pay your neighbor's mortgage who has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?'' Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, who host the popular radio talk show in Northern California, asked the same question of their listeners. And here's their response:

On each of these thousands of postcards is the story of a responsible family struggling to make ends meet in the worst recession in a generation, families who are meeting their obligations, who are staying current with their mortgages, even though many of them are upside down on their home values and owe more than their home is worth. And they're watching as this government says to borrowers who lied on their applications, who put no money down and accepted teaser rates, and who withdrew all of the equity of their home to pay for stuff, don't worry, we'll force your neighbor to pay your mortgage.

They're watching as this government says to lenders like AIG who knowingly made loans to people they knew couldn't afford them, who made millions creating the housing bubble, don't worry, we'll cover your million dollar bonuses with taxpayer money.

But the families who sent in these postcards keep making their payments, many eating into their savings, foregoing vacations, postponing retirements, turning down consumer purchases because they stand by their word. These are the families that turned down the opportunity to flip that house, to make that quick fortune, to cash in on their equity for a second home or a boat they couldn't afford. They are the 92 percent of borrowers who are making their mortgage payments, despite all of the incentives that this administration's offering them to stop. And these postcards are eloquent testimony to their resentment at being required to bail out the banks and the borrowers who created the housing bubble, who caused the credit collapse, and who now are being subsidized, bailed out, and lavished with multi-million dollar bonuses paid for with our tax money.

Joe Getty asked the question yesterday, ``What has happened to the words 'sadder but wiser'? What has happened to that American tradition that you make your own decisions, good or bad, and then you live with those decisions?''

The President tells us that if your neighbor's home is on fire, you don't quibble over who pays for the water. And that's true. But as Jack Armstrong pointed out, if my neighbor burns down his house by shooting off Roman candles in his living room, I'll be darned if I'm going to pay for him to rebuild it.

Armstrong and Getty, Rick Santelli, and others are speaking for the vast silent majority of Americans who pay their bills, who honor their commitments, and who make this country run.

The President recently said that we are all to blame. Well, no, we not all to blame. Those families who passed up the get-rich-quick real estate seminars and turned down the loans they couldn't afford or settled for a smaller home or who rented because that's what they could afford, they're not to blame, and they shouldn't be left holding the bag.

Ninety-two percent of Americans are making their mortgage payments not only because it's the right thing to do, but because they know that the sooner the market corrects itself, the sooner our homes will begin to appreciate once again.

By prolonging the real estate correction, by propping up bad loans, by undermining responsible homeowners, and by rewarding the smartest guys in the room who created this catastrophe with taxpayer-paid bonuses, this government is extending the agony and postponing the day when the market will bottom out and home buyers can safely re-enter the housing market.

Madam Speaker, I take great hope from the public's response to Armstrong and Getty's invitation to protest the mortgage bailouts. It means that the American spirit is not dead, that there are still millions of Americans who believe in individual responsibility and integrity. And even if such people are in short supply in Washington today, they still comprise the vast majority of our Nation, and that great silent majority is fast tiring of remaining silent.

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