Americans Should Become Squatters In Their Own Homes

Posted by Myrna the Minx on February 1, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) has got a point and I certainly appreciate her passion for helping American families rather than the financial companies that have dragged this country into the gutter. I would like to see members of Nevada’s House delegation demonstration this kind of anger and indignation for Nevada families and homeowners. Titus and Berkley have made the usual statements of support but nothing as impassioned at Kaptur’s testimony. I bet Dean Heller was down there in the pits trying to help his constituents keep their homes—not. That guy’s a joke. Heller’s statement on the stimulus package was probably lifted directly from the talking points he was sent without any rewriting–spouting all the same inaccurate bullshit about ACORN and such. Oh and Elko residents–did you notice Heller’s aversion to NEA funding? That’s your congressman saying to hell with NEA funded Cowboy Poetry week–an event that brings hundreds of thousands of dollars to Elko’s local economy–money desperately need there. Just remember that next election. From Progress Ohio:

Transcript

Madam Speaker, I am glad I was here on the floor to respond to the prior Member who felt compelled to say that he thought the Wall Street bailout was working. I would like to know what evidence he has to prove that, since we have no forensic accounting of what the Wall Street banks that got all this money did with the money. Maybe he has some special access inside these institutions and can provide it to the Record, because I will tell you what happened yesterday.

I went before our Rules Committee and I proposed a very simple amendment. My amendment was that before we give one more dime of the people’s money, we require the Treasury to do a forensic accounting of every bit of money that was sent up there to Wall Street. And I was denied my amendment.

There is no Member of this Congress that can say with accuracy, including the gentleman who just spoke, that he knows where the money is, because, you know what? They haven’t told us. All you know is what you have read in the newspapers, and how can we extend more money from the American people when we don’t even know what happened to the money that went out the door?

So you can say whatever you want and create a fiction, but the fact is that foreclosures are going up across this country. That bill that was passed last year was supposed to help people hang onto their homes. In Ohio, foreclosures have gotten worse every month.

What I am telling people right now is, stay in your homes. If the American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don’t leave, because I will tell you what. If you had a smart lawyer like those banks up there on Wall Street can get, they would take you into court and they couldn’t find the mortgage. They couldn’t find the mortgage.

So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in this cold weather? In Ohio it is going to be 10 or 20 below zero. Don’t leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don’t have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can’t find the paper up there on Wall Street.

So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this Congress is stymied. We have the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and our committees are muzzled. Power is given to one chairman or one person.

We are all equal here. We have a right to be heard. The concerns of our constituents have a right to be registered in the committees of this House, not choked down as what is happening here today. It is just a tragedy. And if we don’t fix the economic cure, it is going to get worse, and the cure is to go after the home foreclosure crisis.

Who does that? Treasury? No. That is absolutely the wrong place. We need the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commission empowered to do the real estate workouts on books across this country. Those are the normal institutions that are used. And then you have got HUD there now with FHA that can take these mortgages once they are refinanced. But that is not what is happening across our country. There is no help for the homeowner. That whole section they talked about today, Help for Homeowners over at HUD, nobody has even benefited. We said last year they wouldn’t, and that is exactly what has happened.

So I say to the American people, stay in your homes. You have earned them. And don’t you get out until you get a really good lawyer who can find your mortgage up there on Wall Street. Because, you know what? They won’t be able to find it, and therefore they can’t prove you should be evicted.