Durbin: foreclosure crisis growing

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said more should be done to tame America’s foreclosure crisis.

Durbin, D-Ill., told a lunchtime gathering at the Regional Chamber and Growth Association offices in downtown St. Louis that forecasts of 8 million mortgage foreclosures mean some parts of the country will continue to be hit hard by the crisis. 

“I don’t think we are aggressive enough in dealing with mortgage foreclosures,” Durbin said. “This is at the heart of this crisis. This was the canary in the coal mine. This is what got us started into this recession. And I don’t think that the banking institutions have stepped up and accepted the responsibility to do something about it. Nor do I think we in Congress have enacted the laws that would get it done.”

He said foreclosures can drag down surrounding property values. As long as the numbers continue to mount, Durbin added, the housing market will remain in crisis and the economy won’t rebound.

Durbin talked to the business group about Washington’s response to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, including the economic stimulus promised through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the bailout of the U.S. banks through the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Durbin also voiced support for eight additional C-17 cargo planes in the supplemental defense spending bill. Durbin sits on the two-house conference committee that will consider the spending measure. The Pentagon doesn’t want to order any more of the Boeing-built planes, which support 900 jobs in the St. Louis area and thousands more elsewhere in the U.S.

“The C-17 is such a durable and versatile plane,” Durbin said. “The alternatives they’re talking about, the C-5As just don’t have the capacity and range these planes have. We don’t want to lose this production capacity.”