November 2, 2007 (LPAC)--Two members of Congress asked U.S. Treasury Under Secretary Robert Steel for his views on a freeze on all foreclosures in the U.S., at today's hearing of the full House Financial Services Committee, entitled "Progress in Administration and Other Efforts to Coordinate and Enhance Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention."

Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) asked the first witness, U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Robert K. Steel, "Some people are urging that we should freeze foreclosures now. Mr. Steele, I want your view of this--freezing all foreclosures. What is your professional opinion of this option--freezing foreclosures?" Steel's reply was gobbledygook; he stated at one point, "The idea of a freeze doesn't seem to be the right way.... We should `put a thumb on the scale' for people who need it."

Only yesterday, new figures revealed a doubling of the number of foreclosures on American homeowners from the second to the third quarter.

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) went next, and repeated Green's question, although in a less direct way. Steel repeated his reply to Rep. Green.

The hearing had begun with an explosion by Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) at Brian Montgomery, the Assistant Secretary for Housing of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The topic of the hearing was apparently too hot to handle not only for the chair; only five Democrats of the Committee's 70 members showed up, and two only briefly. While the subject of the shouting match between the Chair and Montgomery of HUD was rather technical, Frank's subtext was quite clear: You're not getting anything done on refinancing. An exasperated Frank repeatedly said during the panel and opening of the next one, "We want to hear some numbers."

On October 30th, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) read a key section of LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act into the record at a hearing of a sub-committee of the Judiciary Committee, and asked the opinion of the witness, Moody's Mark Zandi.

These instances, and Rep. Barney Frank's extreme irritation, show the pressure that the U.S. Congress is coming under from grassroots demands that it take the action American statesman Lyndon LaRouche has proposed on the foreclosures pandemic.