Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I recognize myself for such time as I may consume.

Let me concur with the remarks of the gentleman from Louisiana. I don't like everything in this bill either. It is inconceivable to me that anybody would like everything in this bill, because it is the product of a very significant set of compromises. To some extent, frankly, the challenges the Congress faced and the administration faced in dealing with the housing crisis--remember, we are here in substantial part because of a terrible housing crisis that has affected the economy of the U.S. and the world. We are dealing with the consequences of bad decisions and inaction and malfeasance from years before.

Obviously it requires a joint effort. To some extent, this is a test of our ability as a self-governing people to govern. Because if everybody held off and said I am only going to support a bill with which I am in complete agreement, we would not be able effectively to respond to this crisis.

So I appreciate the President's policy statement saying I don't like everything in this bill, but I'm going to sign it and you should pass it quickly. I think that's true of all of us who have looked at this.

Now I do want to refute some of the myths. One, we heard reference to a $300 billion program. My colleague, the ranking member, sent out a Dear Colleague letter that said the part of the bill that tries to avoid mortgage foreclosure is a $300 billion program. In fact, it's a $1.7 billion program, according to CBO.

Yes, it's $300 billion, $300 billion is the total amount of mortgages that could be insured. It would cost $300 billion only if no one who had one of those mortgages ever made a payment of a penny and the houses were worth nothing. Obviously it's not a $300 billion program. That's why CBO said our version was $1.7 billion.

We also heard from some of the Republicans that it is a $5 trillion program. What they call a $5 trillion program, the stand-by authority that the President has asked us to give the Secretary of the Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office says is a $25 billion program but probably won't be spent.

So I think we need to understand conservative Republican arithmetic. It is the most inflationary arithmetic I ever heard. $1.7 billion of CBO becomes $300 billion. $25 billion from CBO becomes $5 trillion. I hope it will be very clear to people that these numbers that are being thrown around are simply inaccurate and misleading.

I also want to talk now to some of my friends on the left and others who have, I think, been misrepresenting what we are doing with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac giving stand-by authority, saying this is bailing out the corporations, that this is welfare for the rich.

Let me read the list of people, organizations, who have specifically endorsed what this bill does with regard to stand-by authority to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing:

The Consumer Federation of America, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Leadership Conference on Legal Rights, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Mr. Speaker, apparently there has been some infiltration. Apparently the corporate welfare advocates have taken over all the liberal organizations in America. We will probably have to investigate that, because all of the organizations with which I have worked for 28 years, who are the effective advocates for low-income housing, say pass this bill, please, and please specifically help Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac.

So the amount of misinformation here is enormous.

Finally, I want to address the question of procedure. Everything in this bill, with the exception of the emergency request from the President for stand-by authority for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has been fully debated in the Financial Services Committee and voted on and debated on the floor of this House.

We are repackaging a number of things. Sometimes it takes our friends in the Senate two, three and four tries to get something done, so we keep serving the ball to them. Everything in this bill, with the exception of the emergency stand-by authority, has been thoroughly debated and voted on the floor of the House, and no part of it got less than 260 votes. So we're hardly rushing through things for the first time.