HM 913

1	House Memorial
2	A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging
3	Congress to enacting a homeowners and banks protection
4	act.
5
6	WHEREAS, the onrushing financial crisis engulfing home
7	mortgages, debt instruments of all types, and the banking system
8	of the United States threatens to set off an economic depression
9	worse than the 1930s, and
10	WHEREAS, millions of American citizens are threatened with
11	foreclosure and loss of their homes over the upcoming months,
12	and
13	WHEREAS, this financial crisis is now threatening the
14	integrity of both state and federally chartered banks, as
15	typified by the run on deposits of Countrywide Financial in
16	California during the month of August 2007, and such a banking
17	collapse would wipe out the life savings of American citizens
18	and drastically undermine the economic stability of our states
19	and cities, and
20	WHEREAS, under a similar financial crisis in the 1930s,
21	President Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully intervened to
22	protect banks and homeowners, introducing legislation as a
23	"declaration of national policy" on April 13, 1933, which stated
24	that "the broad interests of the Nation require that special
25	safeguards should be thrown around home ownership as a guarantee
26	of social and economic stability", NOW, THEREFORE,
27
28	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
29
30	That the Florida Legislature finds that the current
31	economic crisis in this country requires emergency action that
32	only the United States Congress can enact and believes that
33	Congress must move quickly in order to keep people in their
34	homes and avert social chaos; and, therefore, the Florida
35	Legislature strongly urges Congress to take emergency action to
36	protect homeowners and banks by enacting a homeowners and banks
37	protection act that, at a minimum:
38	(1)  Establishes a federal agency to place the federal and
39	state chartered banks under protection, freezing all existing
40	home mortgages for a period of time that would be required to
41	adjust the values to fair prices, adjusting existing mortgages
42	at appropriate interest rates, and writing off all of the
43	speculative debt obligations of mortgage-backed securities,
44	financial derivatives, and other forms of financial schemes that
45	have brought the banking system to the point of bankruptcy.
46	(2)  Freezes, during the transitional period, all
47	individual homeowner foreclosures, allowing American families to
48	retain their homes. Monthly payments, the equivalent of rental
49	payments, shall be made to designated banks, which can use the
50	funds as collateral for normal lending practices, thus
51	recapitalizing the banking systems. Ultimately, these affordable
52	monthly payments will be factored into new mortgages, reflecting
53	the deflating of the housing bubble, the establishment of
54	appropriate property valuations, and the reduction in fixed
55	mortgage interest rates. Because this adjustment will take
56	several years to achieve, in the interim no homeowner shall be
57	evicted from his or her property, and the federal and state
58	chartered banks shall be protected so that they can resume their
59	traditional functions, serving local communities and
60	facilitating credit for investment in productive industries,
61	agriculture, infrastructure, and other prudent areas of the
62	economy in need of financing.
63	(3)  Authorizes state governors to assume the
64	administrative responsibilities for implementing the program,
65	including the "rental" assessments to designated banks, with the
66	Federal Government providing the necessary credits and
67	guarantees to ensure a successful transition.
68	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
69	dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
70	President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
71	United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
72	the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.

CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.