House passes mortgage rescue
The plan gains support as pressure mounts on both political parties.
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday passed the most sweeping government plan yet to shore up the troubled housing market and help people struggling to pay their mortgages, adopting legislation that would underwrite $300 billion in new loans and keep an estimated 500,000 homeowners out of foreclosure.
Backers contend the bill -- or something close to it -- has a good chance of becoming law even though Senate Republicans have criticized it and the White House has threatened a veto.
"We're not stopping trying to compromise," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and chief author of the package. "We're still taking their views into account and moving forward."
Democrats and Republicans have clashed repeatedly over the size, pace and scope of any government rescue plan. And some House Republicans complained about parliamentary maneuvers that Democratic leaders had used to move the bill to a vote and to reduce the chances that the legislation would become bottled up in the Senate.
As the housing crisis has deepened, however, and opinion polls have shown increased voter anxiety about the economy, pressure has mounted on both parties to take action before the Nov. 4 election.
"After a historic housing boom in the first half of this decade, we are now in an unprecedented housing crisis," said House Majority Leader Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.). "The negative housing market has had a rippling effect throughout our economy."
"We cannot stick with the status quo," said Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida, one of 39 Republicans who voted for the measure. "That's sticking our policymaking heads in the sand."
Rep. Gary G. Miller of Diamond Bar was the only California Republican to vote for the bill.
"I don't support government bailouts but I consider this bill far from a government bailout," said Miller, whose district includes communities hurt by the wave of foreclosures.
The bill passed 266 to 154.
Many Republicans who otherwise supported the legislation voted against it to protest what they called the majority's heavy-handed procedural tactics to limit debate and speed passage by sending the measure directly to the floor of each house.
The housing crisis has not only pitted both parties against each other but also has divided the GOP internally, with some Republicans arguing that the government should stand aside and let market forces deal with the issue and others insisting that the collateral damage from a hands-off approach would be too great.
