4:30:30 to 4:30:50( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: quorum call: ms. mccaskill: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. ms. mccaskill: madam president, once -- the presiding officer: we're in a ms. mccaskill: i ask that the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mccaskill: madam president, once upon a time, someone had a good idea about trying to open up the mortgage

4:30:51 to 4:31:13( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: market to as many people as possible, and between that moment and now, we have seen a giant economic crisis that has mushroomed out of control, and we've sat around here for months now trying to figure out how did it happen and why did it happen. and one of the reasons it

4:31:35 to 4:31:56( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: know, if you go talk people into borrowing more money than they can affor they can pay it back. you don't immediate to worry about that because you're going to -- you don't need to about that because you're going to make your money anyway. the people were not a partner to the risk. that's how you got people

4:32:19 to 4:32:39( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: on hyper alert for the exact same set of circumstances. but we're not, because it's going on today as we speak. you turn on any cable channel almost in america and before midnight you're going to see an ad that says to seniors, you need to take advantage of a

4:33:01 to 4:33:23( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: lifetime and converts it to cash. now, in and of itself, this is not a bad concept. people oughto be able to borrow against the value of their homes. we do it with home equity loans. here's the problem: we've got the people closing these loans that have no skin in the game. guess who's insuring all these loans? we are.

4:33:47 to 4:34:09( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: house is sold, if it doesn't -- when the house is sold, if it doesn't sell for enough money, guess who's left holding the bag? hello? subprime mortgage, chapter 2 -- we're back. we've got the same issue as we've got with the subprimes. since we began in program in 1990, h.u.d. has endorsed and

4:34:32 to 4:34:52( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: since 1990 and we're going to do 200,000 loans this year. we're talking about a huge growth in the potential liability to the american taxpayer. these are complex and expensive loans, and for many elderly, the

4:35:15 to 4:35:36( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: we fix this program. it is embarrassing that we let the subprime mess go for as long as we did without anybody saying, whoa! hold on. it will be doubling embarrassing if we allow this reverse mortgage situation to go down

4:35:58 to 4:36:19( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: country, hasone a great job beginning to find problems of specific nature as it relates to aud. some of it is where we've got inflated appraisals. i mean, some of it is where you've got shoddy repairs being done, which decrease the value of the home, which increases the

4:36:41 to 4:37:02( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: fraud is increasing. all the bad actors who were over there in subprime, they're looking for a new extreme of money. so they're all sliding over and saying, hey, let's start marketing these reverse mortgages to seniors. we have got to do someth about this now. i filed an amendment to the legislation that is in front of

4:37:24 to 4:37:44( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: mortgage, that the property is owned and occupied for at least 180 days so that we do not have the flipping that we've seen in the subprime morgt t market. require these properties being appraised by certified appraisers -- h.u.d.-certified aprayers. we've got verify the the

4:38:07 to 4:38:28( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: can report fraud and consumer abuse. require that the lenders and counselors maintain a system to maintain compliance. ensure that the h.u.d. inspector general has the authority to conduct independent audits of the lenders. wouldn't it have been nice if we had done this back with subprimes? conduct independent audits and inspections of reverse mortgage

4:38:51 to 4:39:11( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: criminal charges can be brought against fraud perpetrators i this area be calculated on when we find out about the criminal activity, not when it occurred. because many instaes we may not find out about the fraud until the elderly person dies and then they find out that maybe they thought that they still had value in their home, but they were lied to.

4:39:34 to 4:39:54( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: step, but we it is very, very important that we protect our predatory lenders. you know, when you see these on tv, it sounds be true -- it sounds too good to be true.

4:40:16 to 4:40:25( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: well as h.u.d. and the h.u.d. inspector general and g.a.o. to get the things done we must do to clean up this problem.

4:41:09 to 4:41:30( Edit History Discussion )

Patrick Leahy: i think it is a warning to many again, i would reiterate that one. we've tried to move this fraud bill is because everyone is against fraud and crime, but as the senator from missouri knows so well, you got to have some laws on t enforce to go after fraud and go after crime.

4:41:37 to 4:41:57( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: vermont on the yield the floor so that he also speak on the matter. mr. sanders: i thank my colleague from vermont -- the presiding officer: the junior senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you. i want to congratulate the senior senator from vermont for bringing forth a very

4:41:58 to 4:42:19( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: piece of legislation. clearly, if we are going to begin to address the crisis our financial need the manpower to go out there to do the investigations. we don't have it, and this legislation does that. madam president, i wanted to say a few words in the midst of this debate on an issue that i will

4:42:41 to 4:43:02( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: across this country are being forced to pay by these very same financial institutions that we're in the process of bailing out. what is going on now is that while we spend hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out our friends on wall street and while they receive loans from the fed, they're

4:43:25 to 4:43:45( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: similar to the type of legislation that regulates credit unions right now, which would have a maximum interest rate of 15%, with some exceptions going to 18%. so that the american people who are stress, who are buying groceries with the credit buying clothing for their kids with credit cards, who are

4:44:07 to 4:44:27( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: state. and this is what it "i, li so many others, am appalled at the hikes in credit card rates. everywhere in our small-town of montgomery, everybody is talking about the latest surge in interest rates. people who are never late in payments have seen their rates climb overnight. i, for one, used to overspie pay

4:44:49 to 4:45:12( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: no one has any money for anything anymore. the outrage which i am sure esn't surprise you is building. doesn't anyone get it?" well, doesn't anybody the united states senate get it? i hope that we do. here's another one that comes from the largest city in our state, burlington.

4:45:35 to 4:45:55( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: rate for business reasons only. one option was to pay down my balance at 7.9%, but not use ton future purposes. i appreciate your fight against this sort of action. basically they can do w they want. yeah, that's quite right. they can do whatever they want. sanders, we just received a note

4:46:17 to 4:46:39( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: expense of consumers. here's another one. there is a lot of news on how credit card companies are trying to recoup losses from raising rates on credit cards. that's what my husband and i just experienced. two months ago i ran my husband's credit card report and between the three credit beaus we ranked around 800.