“Simply put, taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to bail out the lenders who helped homeowners dive into the deep end of the financial pool, nor should taxpayers be obligated to rescue investors who made poor financial decisions. We didn’t bailout people who bought tech stocks at the height of the dot com boom, why should this be any different?”

-- Jim Broussard, Executive Director of Citizens Against Higher Taxes, eMedia Wire December 18, 2007

“The Bush administration's subprime mortgage bailout sets a dangerous precedent…If the government intervenes in these private markets, investors will finance mortgages and potentially other types of loans only if they are compensated with a risk premium. Interest rates on all these items would be higher than they would otherwise. All consumers effectively would be subsidizing people who receive bailouts.”

-- Kevin Kellert, New Jersey Citizen, APP, New Jersey, December 17, 2007

"I have yet to hear a homeowner state that it is their fault they are in this mess. Yes, there are definitely hardship situations. But what about personal responsibility for your actions? I have been scammed, a fairly small amount, and I have lost money on investments. My fault. I paid."

-- George Topor, San Fransisco Citizen, San Francisco Chronicle, December 9, 2007

"It gives a sense that the government ought to be engaged in rescuing borrowers in this particular category. It also conveys the message that foreclosures are a bad thing or unhealthy. Foreclosures are a natural part of market discipline. If you take out the impact of foreclosures you have reduced the stick that stands behind the commitment to pay on the mortgage. I would think this would make the markets nervous. This is very interventionist, even to the extent it's voluntary."

-- G. Marcus Cole, Professor at Stanford Law School, San Fransico Chronicle, December 9, 2007

"One must also take seriously the possibility that policy actions that have the effect of reducing stress in financial markets may also promote excessive risk-taking and thus increase the probability of future crises."

-- Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2007

“A government bailout will only shift risk from the borrowers and lenders to the taxpayers and future borrowers. It is nothing more than a new taxpayer-subsidized program that will rescue disreputable mortgage banking or brokerage firms at the expense of working families, taxpayers, and lower- and middle-income homeowners.”

-- Ken Payne, President of the Sacramento County Taxpayers' League, Sacramento Bee, October 6, 2007

“Responsible consumers and taxpayers should not have to pay for poor decisions by a handful of consumers who took out loans they could not afford, nor should they be forced to bail out the lenders who helped these folks dive into the deep end of the financial pool.”

-- Ken Payne, President of the Sacramento County Taxpayers' League, Sacramento Bee, October 6, 2007

“Bottom line: The scary foreclosure and delinquency rates you're hearing about are for real. But they're highly concentrated -- among loan types, local and regional economies, and especially prevalent among investors in formerly high-flying markets.”

-- Kenneth Harney, executive director of the National Real Estate Development Center, Miami Herald September 23, 2007

 “(Congressional action) would create risk to our capital markets and deprive legitimate potential homeowners of access to credit.”

-- Senator Mike Crapo, Idaho Republican & Banking Committee member, Bloomberg, September 17, 2007

“Subprime mortgages represent, at most, between 10 and 15 percent of the mortgage market. And of these, no more than 10 to 15 percent are in trouble. So, the messy portion of the mortgage market is somewhere between 1 percent and 2.25 percent of the total…In real terms then the total mortgage market stands to lose somewhere from one-quarter to about one-half of 1 percent of its value.”

-- James McCusker, Bothell Economist, Educator and Consultant, Herald Net, September 16, 2007

“Was the subprime market responsible for a net loss of 270,000 homeowners in 2006?  It was not; the market’s contribution to home ownership was positive, not negative…the widely held proposition that the subprime market makes a positive net contribution to homeownership still stands.”

-- Jack Guttentag, Professor of Finance, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Boston Globe, September 4, 2007

“It would be useful if the government would end its encouragement of borrowers taking on a huge amount of debt.”

-- Michael Carney, Executive Director of the Real Estate Research Council at California State Polytechnic University, Los Angeles Daily News, September 1, 2007

“Lenders already have an incentive to work with homeowners to avoid foreclosures, which are generally not a winning deal for either party.  That’s a process Congress should stay out of, lest it encourage recklessness on the part of future borrowers or lenders.”

-- Editorial, Chicago Tribune, August 30, 2007

“You cannot simply decree that there will be no foreclosures…You can’t just give people a free ride.”

-- Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of House Financial Services Committee (New York Times, August 28, 2007)

“In simple terms, you’re punishing people who manage their affairs well and rewarding those who don’t.”

-- Editorial, Los Angeles Daily Breeze, August 24, 2007

“Legislative efforts to intervene in the market are not the answer.”

-- California State Senator Michael Machado (D-Linden), Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2007

“In California we had a lot of people overextend themselves to buy houses they really couldn’t afford.”

-- Rick Sharga, VP of marketing at RealtyTrac, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2007

“There has to be some element of personal responsibility…Is that a good use of taxpayer dollars to, in effect, bail out people who should have known the consequences of those mortgages when they signed them?”

-- David Wolfe, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Los Angeles Daily News, August 21, 2007

“Easy money always leads to greater problems down the road—either rising inflation, or a reduced sensitivity to risk, as markets come to expect rate cuts to bail them out”

-- Brain S. Wesbury, chief economists for the First Trust Portfolios, LP. (Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2007)

“None of this has shaken my fundamental long-term optimism about the economy and the markets. The collective rediscovery of risk that has taken place in the past few weeks, while painful for some, is healthy, are occasional corrections.”

-- James B. Stewart, columnist for SmartMoney.com (Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2007)

“I think any return to rationality is a good thing… about a third of the growth was buyers who shouldn’t have been homeowners at this point in their life.”

-- Amy Crews Cutts, deputy chief economist, Freddie Mac (Sacramento Bee, August 14, 2007)

“It’s bringing quite a bit of sensibility back to mortgage lending…We see our buyers in general looking for more conservative loan products.”

-- Patrick D’Arcangelo, VP of Marketing in Sacramento Area, Centax Homes (Sacramento Bee, August 14, 2007)

“Not all homeowners in default on their mortgages are hard-luck stories. Some borrowers took advantage of low standards to snatch up property with the hope of flipping it for a quick profit. When the hot real-estate market cooled off, they were stuck with property they couldn’t sell and mortgage payments they couldn’t afford.”

-- Editorial, Orlando Sentinel, August 14, 2007

“We…brought this on ourselves through greed and an apparent unwillingness or inability to take personal responsibility for our actions.”

-- Mike Baker, columnist, Fox News, August 14, 2007

“Bringing in the feds to bail them out would send precisely the wrong message—that risky or overly aggressive borrowing will be rewarded by the government rather than punished in the marketplace”

-- Editorial, Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2007

 “The constant warnings of a housing-related collapse in domestic consumption overstates the importance of housing in the economy, while understating the importance of jobs and economic growth, both of which have been solid.”

-- David Malpass, Chief Economist at Bear Stearns (Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2007)

“The market has focused on this. There's a wake-up call, and there's an adjustment to this repricing of risk, but I see the underlying economy as being very healthy.”

-- Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary (New York Times, August 1, 2007)

“But government must not get into the business of bailing out people who can't handle their debt, even if they're poor. Burdening the public with bad loans is unwise policy. The taxpayers should not become suckers-of-last-resort. “

-- Froma Harrop, Columnist, (Tallahassee Democrat, July 31, 2007)

 “The pendulum swung pretty far to one side, and now we are seeing balance being brought back to the market.”

-- Robin Kane, Real Estate Analyst (Fresno Bee, July 25, 2007)

“If government saves borrowers and lenders from the consequences of the poor choices they make, these foolish practices will continue. We'll have ever more housing bubbles, more inflated real estate prices and still more government bailouts.”

-- Editorial, Newbury Port News, July 20, 2007

 “My fear is that in the name of protecting consumers we would potentially lock out hundreds of thousands of families from homeownership. The bottom line is that dishonest actors preying on innocent consumer should face justice, and responsible lenders should be able to work with borrowers without excessive hindrance to help them reach their goal of homeownership.”

-- Robert Camerota, Chairman of the California Mortgage Brokers Association (Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2007)

 “There is no better demonstration of this than the industry's response to the cooling of the sub-prime market in the last 18 months. Working with investors, our market has gone a long way to correcting itself through tighter underwriting standards and the reduction in use of some product types.”

-- Robert Camerota, Chairman of the California Mortgage Brokers Association (Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2007)

 “…[Governor] Patrick’s plan runs the risk of letting borrowers off the hook, at taxpayer expense.”

-- Editorial, Boston Herald, July 12, 2007

“From the standpoint of monetary policy I do not consider it very likely that developments related to subprime mortgages will have a big effect on overall US economic performance."

-- Janet Yellen, President, San Francisco Federal Reserve (New York Times, July 6, 2007)