Congress Unlikely to Intervene in Governmental Accounting and Bond PracticesJim Segel, special counsel to House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), spoke at the 2008 Winter Standing Committees Meeting on January 25 in Washington, D.C., and reiterated Chairman Frank’s recent comment that there is no interest in having Congress change state and local government accounting and municipal bond practices, as SEC Chairman Chris Cox proposed last summer. Mr. Segel repeated the remark Chairman Frank had made at a January 23 press conference and expressed confidence in the municipal bond market, as Chairman Frank had done, noting, “The chairman sees no need to add more burdens to what you are doing.”
Addressing more than 200 GFOA members, Mr. Segel focused his comments on the impact the housing bubble and subprime mortgage crisis are having nationwide, especially on lower-income households. He spoke about the work Congress is doing to find ways to stabilize home prices and allow for homeowners to secure realistic refinancing opportunities in fixed-rate mortgages. Mr. Segel acknowledged the problems local governments are facing in this financial downturn, particularly decreased revenues and increased need for services by citizens. He also discussed the implications of bond insurers’ capitalization problems on the municipal bond market, while noting that municipal bonds themselves are not the problem.
|
