Last Friday, I sent a letter to the Treasury Dept. to make sure they are acting appropriately to safeguard taxpayer dollars while stabilizing the economy. In the letter, I urged the Office of Financial Stability to hire asset managers for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which was created with the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) of 2008.

Congress passed and the President signed the EESA on Oct. 3, and Treasury gave a short deadline for applications of Oct. 8, due to the urgent need to implement TARP.

As of October 24th, a key program of EESA called the Whole Loan Asset Management Services had yet to hire any financial institutions to act as whole loan asset managers. Asset managers will be responsible for not only determining loan value but also loan servicing. Loan Servicers, when appropriate, will be instrumental in helping American families work through rough periods and avoid foreclosure. While these asset managers should be vetted properly, these positions need to be filled soon to help return liquidity to the financial markets and ensure credit is available to small businesses, farms and families.

As it considers ways to improve the efficiency and quality of U.S. health care, one issue that a new Congress should reconsider is the longstanding roadblock that has stalled efforts to create a system of unique patient identification numbers for every person in the United States.

A new report from our group at the RAND Corporation suggests that while the cost of such an effort would be large (as much as $11 billion), it would likely return even more benefits to the nation’s health care system by facilitating a reduction in medical errors, simplifying use of electronic medical records, increasing overall efficiency and helping to protect patient privacy. Read the rest of this entry »

As the U.S. Treasury Department considers whether to make insurance companies eligible for some of the $700 billion available through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act approved by Congress, insurance policyholders should remain confident that they are protected as the property/casualty industry continues to be financially sound. Property/casualty insurance companies, particularly the nation’s mutual insurance companies, are well capitalized and have adequate reserves to pay claims.

NAMIC’s board of directors yesterday approved a policy to oppose the expansion of Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program to include the property/casualty insurance industry. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re trying to help the people with the pain they have on the streets with dramatic efforts as relates to the fiscal institutions. Now we’re getting masses that have lost their jobs and lost their health insurance. At yesterday’s hearing we had mayors, governors and teachers, who are of tremendous assistance to us as we hope to come back after the election to do something about these horrific problems.

For years now, our economy has been based on bloated paper assets.  We rise and fall based on the value of stocks, derivatives and futures.  And the result has been a series of bubbles that burst under the weight of their own overvalued components. It is time to rebuild our nation’s economy on the basis of real tangible goods and work.   I think that the American people want to see us making investments in industrial-based, real assets including roads, bridges, highways, ports and broadband.

We’re in a global economy in a knowledge-based system. But, our public school systems are woefully behind the curve. We need to improve technology in our schools to give our students the tools they need to learn and thrive.  We need to be making an investment that will not only create jobs but provide sustainable growth into the future and educate our children in a manor that will allow them to compete in the global economy.

This is a hearing to explore different ideas of what to include in an economy recovery package to get the economy moving again. Congress will come back after the elections in a lame-duck session, and it is our hope that we will be able to come together on a bipartisan basis, the House, Senate and White House, to do something to try to get the economy back on track. This hearing was to explore different ideas.

I think there needs to be assistance to the domestic auto industry, with or without mergers. There is a critical need here and the problems they’re having in major ways are not of their own making. Something has to happen. The credit crunch is hurting the domestic auto industry terribly. With or without mergers there has to be active engagement of this town, with towns throughout America that are very much invested in the domestic auto industry and their suppliers. This is not a Detroit issue alone, this is a national issue.

This economic recovery hearing is at least as important as the bailout was. One of the reasons I think the bailout was so unpopular is Read the rest of this entry »

Driving through the district today, gas station after gas station displayed gas prices around the $2 mark. The lowest price I saw today was $2.06 in Elk River. It seems like only yesterday papers and pundits in my district and around the country were mocking the mere notion of $2 gas — but here we are.

What happened the past few months to lower the cost of gas? Several things, but perhaps most importantly, Congress has let the ban on offshore oil exploration and oil shale expire, sending a signal to the markets that the United States may finally be ready to up their supply. Also, the collapse of the global markets has stabilized the American dollar. In other words, we’re now getting more bang for our buck. Read the rest of this entry »

I think yesterday’s hearing on investing in our transportation and infrastructure as part of the stimulus package was probably one of the most critical hearings we’re going to have here in Congress before we come back in November. I know in my Congressional District, the fourth District of Maryland, and around the country, we need these deep investments in infrastructure for competitiveness, for productivity, and also to create jobs so we can get this economy moving.