IV 
112TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 365 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress should 
cut the United States’ true debt burden by reducing home mortgage 
balances, forgiving student loans, and bringing down overall personal 
debt. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 22, 2011 
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan submitted the following resolution; which was re-
ferred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subse-
quently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
Congress should cut the United States’ true debt burden 
by reducing home mortgage balances, forgiving student 
loans, and bringing down overall personal debt. 
Whereas the threat of default stands to exacerbate an already 
dire situation for citizens of the United States with re-
gard to personal debt by increasing the cost of debt serv-
ice and future borrowing; 
Whereas the average person in the United States, much like 
the Federal Government, owes more in monthly bills than 
he or she has on hand, but, unlike the Federal Govern-
ment, individuals and households who suffered employ-
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•HRES 365 IH 
ment setbacks during the financial crisis face extraor-
dinarily high costs to finance their debt; 
Whereas while 30-year Treasury bond yields have hovered 
around 4.3 percent, some credit card borrowers who have 
missed payments face interest rates of up to 29 percent, 
rates that would only go up should the government de-
fault; 
Whereas average borrowers in the United States often face 
terms that are more severe than market conditions war-
rant, and additional uncertainty brought on by approach-
ing the debt ceiling or actual default are likely to increase 
the mark-up that lenders demand; 
Whereas according to Nobel Prize-winning Economist Joseph 
Stiglitz, the credit card debt situation faced by many 
United States citizens is similar to ‘‘partial indentured 
servitude’’, where ‘‘an individual with debts equal to 
100% of his or her income could be forced to hand over 
to the bank 25% of his gross, pre-tax income for the rest 
of his life, because the bank could add on 30% interest 
each year to what a person owed.’’; 
Whereas in 2009, nearly half of people in the United States 
had credit card debt, with a median balance of $3,300; 
Whereas credit card interest payments alone now total ap-
proximately $94,000,000,000 per year; 
Whereas in 2011, the average borrower graduating from a 4- 
year college left school with roughly $23,000 of student 
debt, but compounding this burden, only 56 percent of 
2010 graduates were able to find work following comple-
tion of their studies according to a study by the John J. 
Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers 
University; 
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Whereas in 2009, average mortgage payments surpassed 
$1,000 per month; 
Whereas as of March 2011, 2,400,000 United States home-
owners with mortgages, or 27.9 of the total population of 
home mortgagors, had less than 5 percent equity on their 
homes; 
Whereas if home prices fall between 5 and 10 percent by the 
end of 2011, as some forecast, nearly one-third of United 
States homeowners with mortgages would owe more on 
their homes than the properties are worth; 
Whereas Mark Fleming, the chief economist for the business 
analytics firm CoreLogic, has stated that ‘‘Negative eq-
uity holds millions of borrowers captive in their homes, 
unable to move or sell their properties. Until the high 
level of negative equity begins to recede, the housing and 
mortgage finance markets will remain very sluggish.’’; 
Whereas increases in credit card interest rates have the same 
negative impact on consumer demand for goods and serv-
ices as price increases, creating a drag on the economy 
that is made worse by uncertainty over the debt ceiling; 
Whereas student loans, mortgage debt, and credit card debt 
create a vicious economic cycle as consumers avoid spend-
ing on account of their debts and businesses forego hiring 
because they lack customers; 
Whereas reducing household debt and increasing savings di-
rectly ameliorates the United States’ trade deficit; 
Whereas when United States citizens save more, they are able 
to finance United States imports rather than borrowing 
from abroad; 
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Whereas given that savings finance investment and that in-
vestment drives economic growth, increasing the savings 
rate should be a priority; 
Whereas under bankruptcy rules, corporations are allowed to 
write down the debt restructure because it is essential to 
keep them functioning; 
Whereas corporations are deemed to be systemically impor-
tant to the United States economy and keeping families 
in their homes is also systematically important; 
Whereas evictions have destructive consequences not only for 
families but also for neighbors, municipal governments, 
the environment, and the fiscal health of the United 
States; 
Whereas high personal savings economies tend to be high 
growth economies; 
Whereas the experiences of the ‘‘Asian Tiger’’ economies 
(South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) dur-
ing the late 20th century or China in the present period 
illustrate this notion; 
Whereas just as importantly, high savings countries tend to 
be more economically resilient; and 
Whereas after suffering the lessons of the Financial Crisis of 
1997, East Asian countries’ savings levels skyrocketed, 
which is widely cited as a reason they have suffered mini-
mal impacts from the recent financial crisis: Now, there-
fore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) the high rate of personal debt is an urgent 
national concern for the health of the United States 
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economy, on par with the urgency of addressing the 
Federal debt and debt limit; 
(2) Congress should cut the United States’ true 
debt burden by reducing home mortgage balances, 
forgiving student loans, and bringing down overall 
personal debt; 
(3) having the Federal Government avoid de-
fault and reducing the Federal debt will not make 
the United States stronger alone, but household debt 
should be cut too in order to make the United States 
strong; and 
(4) helping citizens of the United States become 
free of debt to promote personal financial security 
and to strengthen the Nation’s economy should be a 
top priority of the United States. 
Æ 
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