Date: 2011-03-16
Speaker: GARY G. MILLER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: California

That was a very nice picture of a storefront. It was not a picture of a home. Now. why would you impose a terrible program on rural America that you dont want on urban America? You have to say we have given away $6 billion of taxpayer monies and it will never come back to the Federal Government. We are saying lets preserve the last billion dollars. There is a huge lack of accountability in this program. The inspector general of HUD has already identified multiple misuses of NSP money at the State level. The GAO has questioned the information system that places HUD at risk using the tracking system. How many of you want to use your money to buy this house that Chairman BACHUS has pointed out? Nobody. But. taxpayers. guess what? We are using your money. The biggest problem with this program is unfair allocation. Now. rural America. you probably got ripped off in this whole process like everybody else did because. lets see. where did the money go? In the NSP 1. we spent $4 billion. In the NSP 2. $1.93 billion. We are saying the last billion dollars. lets at least save that for the taxpayers and use it for some beneficial purpose. Where did the money go? Lets see if it was fairly distributed. Lets look at my area. L.A. County got $26.3 million. San Bernardino County. one of the hardest hit. got $33.2 million. Orange County got $4.3 million. San Diego County. $5.1 million. A total of $68.9 million on hardhit counties. Now. lets see. What did nongovernment agency groups get out there that are incorporated? Neighborhood Lending Partners. Incorporated got $50 million. the Community Builders. Incorporated got $78.6 million. Los Angeles Neighborhood Housing Service. Incorporated got $60 million. Neighborhood Lending Partners of West Florida. Incorporated got $50 million. and Chicanos por la Causa. Inc. got $137 million. Now. all of my counties got $68.9 million. the Community Builders got $78.6 million. Chicanos por la Causa got $137 million. Is that considered nonequitable qualification? It is nonequitable. period. It does not make sense. And we say $1.3 billion went to nongovernment agencies. Now. somebody said I was racist because I said Chicanos por la Causa got $137 million. They got 10 percent of all the funds given to nongovernment agencies. If it was Germans for Affordable Housing that got $137 million. I would oppose it just like I oppose this one. Now. taxpayers understand. clearly. it did not prevent one foreclosure in this entire country. Not one person got to keep their home because we spent $6 billion. In fact. imagine the family who owned the home. Maybe the ma or pa got in trouble with their job. They couldnt quite make the payments. For the last 3 years. they have been unable to repair the plumbing. They couldnt replace the oven that wasnt working. A couple windows were broken out. The house needed painting. And they had to sit there and let their house go back to the lender. to watch some entity. a nonprofit or government agency. buy that home. fix it up. and sell it to somebody else. How would you feel when nobody came to your aid when you were losing your home. but yet your tax dollars were used to buy that home to give it to somebody else? Now. understand clearly. the argument they have made is look at all the money we gave to bail out the banks. Well. I got an update from Treasury today. Ninetynine percent of the money that we lent to banks has been paid back. And. guess what? We made $20 billion on it. But we gave $7 billion away to this program. So. yes. we made 20. and we ended up with a net 13. by lending the money that you say bailed out the banks. It was a loan. This program does nothing but say we are going to send you a check. and you never send us a dime back. And the sweet part is you can pay any amount of money you want for the house. It is almost impossible to violate the terms of this deal. because there are no conditions. You can pay $800.000 for a house and sell it for $50. The requirement is whatever you pay for the house. plus whatever you pay to rehabilitate the house. you have to sell it for less. And it doesnt say who you have to sell it to. A nonprofit. I am not saying they would. could have a cousin who wanted to buy the house that they paid $180.000 for and they could sell it legitimately for $20.000. and. guess what? You have not violated the terms of NSP 1. 2 or 3. and you have not broken the law. And when you sell the house. if you sell it. you can take the money and recycle it again. You could even take this money and do a private venture with a private group. splitting profits. and. falling under the conditions of how you buy the house and sell the house. money gets split. There are very few restrictions in this bill. This is a terrible bill. I would encourage a "no" vote on the motion to recommit.