“I want the market to work if it can, and most of the time it will, but not without some pain,”
Shelby said in an interview.
Richard C. Shelby has more say over the revamping of housing finance laws than almost anyone else in Congress.
[...]
He will soon play a major role in deciding the fate of one such bill, to help struggling homeowners, that the House passed, 266 to 154, on Thursday.
Over the years, his critics say, Shelby’s ties to the mortgage industry and the Alabama real estate market, and the generous campaign donations he receives from financial services companies, have distorted his perspective and led him to delay critical legislative remedies.
[...]
His stubbornness over housing laws, he said, stems from his free-market philosophy and opposition to using tax dollars to bail out people who acted recklessly.
-
The U.S. treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, defended on Sunday[16.Mar.08] the Federal Reserve's decision to help rescue Bear Stearns, the teetering Wall Street investment bank.
-
you can’t do $2.4 billion for homeowners, but you can do $29 billion for the people who did business with Bear Stearns.
Barney Frank
