Liquidity to the nations Mortgage Finance markets. You may have heard mark zandi say that it werent for fha, the Housing Market wouldve completely shut down. You know that fha is enormously important to the Hispanic Community. 610,000 hispanic households have purchased a home using an fha guaranteed mortgage since president obama took office. In 2012 alone, 55 of hispanic homebuyers used fha. We want to make sure that future generations have the same opportunity by ensuring fha is strong for years to come. That is why we have strengthened underwriting standards and our portfolio resulting in dramatic improvements. Our Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund has gained 15 billion in value over the last year. We now anticipate that the fund will return to the required two percent capital reserve ratio in 2015, that is two years sooner than we projected just a year earlier. To build on this progress, we will continue to execute policies that reduce losses, increase recoveries on troubled legacy loans. We will look for innovative ways to get credit to those ready to buy and ensure these transactions have the best possible chance to succeed. Through our homeowners armed with knowledge or hawk initiative, we are working to embed housing counseling throughout the fha origination and servicing process. Through updated manual underwriting guidance and our back to work initiative, we are ensuring that lenders look at the whole financial picture when underwriting a loan. This helps those who may have experienced damage credit due to crisis but are fundamentally creditworthy borrowers to be considered for mortgage. Fha continues to fulfill its mission of helping open the doors to homeownership for a wide variety of qualified borrowers. It has been critical to our housing recovery and to our overall market. Sales are up, starts are up, confidence is up. I also know that none of us is content. Just think about what would happen if our Housing Market were to collapse again. It would undermine all the progress that we have made, particularly in the Hispanic Community. That is why we have to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again by reforming our Housing Finance system. Naturally, that will require action from congress and you heard the president just last tuesday night, call on congress to move forward on Housing Finance reform. I also know what many of you or maybe all of you are probably thinking. With all that has happened in washington in recent years, what makes Shaun Donovan crazy enough to think that we can get a bill through congress . What i would ask you to remember is that housing has always been an area of Common Ground in our country. President truman and senator taft worked together on the housing act of 1949. Ed brooks and Walter Mondale worked together to produce landmark legislation decades later. Last year, we saw bipartisan progress in congress on this issue. It is time for everyone to come together and make Housing Finance reform a reality. Last august, the president outlined a series of principles that he believes should be at the core of our Housing Finance system. Three of which i want to focus on today. The first is that private Capital Needs to be at the center of our system. We all know that our Current Conditions where the federal government guarantees more than 80 of mortgages in this country is simply unsustainable. The risks and rewards of mortgage lending have historically been in the hands of the private sector and need to be in the future. How do we structure reform to attract back private capital . To start with, we should put private capital in a first loss position so that we can ensure that taxpayers are never again on the hook for bad loans and bailouts. That means winding down fannie mae and freddie mac in their current form. As the president said, for too long the model was heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. We can change this by making a smooth transition of all their assets, their loans, their people, and their infrastructure as part of governments new limited and targeted role. As we make this transition, we know we have to pay very close attention to how we do it so we dont disrupt the credit market in the short term so that recovery can continue. Second, the Government Role needs to be very explicit, clear, and defined, as opposed to before when it was just implicit, where nobody really understood what government would do in the face of a crisis. This requires that new entities pay for the Government Insurance similar to the way banks pay for fdic deposit insurance. One of the benefits of that in addition to making the guarantee solid and clear is that it also allows us to expand a Housing Trust fund and our Capital Magnet Fund so that we support dramatically more affordable housing. We need to ensure, we need to come together to ensure that reform yields a fund of more than 5 billion a year that could help to support down payment assistance and a range of other goals. This will be good for the Hispanic Community and for the nation as well. A third principle of reform that was outlined by the president is ensuring access to safe, responsible financing like the 30year fixed rate mortgage. Lets remember that as we talk about the Important Role the federal government should take, there will be those who say, the federal government gets involved, we will have another crisis again. We need to have a purely private market. The president disagrees. He believes that that guarantee is a fundamental part of our future that has to in a safe, explicit way that follows the principles i have just outlined, but is there to make sure that those who have too often been left out of our system can take those first steps to homeownership. That means maintaining the 30year mortgage. It also means shaping a competitive marketplace that will ensure that no family, no community is left behind that will ensure that Community Banks and small lenders have the same access to capital as big banks. All of that is part of shaping the system that is not only safe for taxpayers, but that builds opportunity in the way the president is focused on. Let me just say, six years after the financial collapse, it is time to get this critical step done. We must move Housing Finance reform through our congress this year. We know that the Senate Banking committee thank you. [applause] we know that the Senate Banking committee is working on bipartisan reform as we speak. We expect to see a bill in the next few weeks. We need to work with the committee, with the entire senate, and with the house as well, to keep the momentum going so that we can get legislative action as early as possible this year. This is an election year. The longer we go, the later it gets, the more difficult it will be to get this reform done and help make sure we have a rocksolid foundation that will build the homeowners of future generations. Make no mistake, it will not be easy. You know, nothing about our housing come back has been easy. I also know that nahrep does not back down from a challenge. In good times and bad times, you fight for progress and opportunity. Over the course of this conference, you will hear a lot of ideas about what we need to do next to continue this fight. But to use the ernie reyes quote once again ideas are great, but they dont mean a darn thing without some action behind them. So lets act together. Lets act to support the president s 2014 agenda to create jobs and expand opportunity for all. Lets act to get more people covered with Affordable Health care so that they can secure their financial futures. Lets act to get Immigration Reform done once and for all. [applause] lets not stop there. Lets act to increase access to credit for responsible families. [applause] lets act to reform the Housing Finance system to make sure that we dont have a crisis like we had ever again, but to make sure the doors of opportunity are open for the future. In short, lets act in partnership to shape a fairer and more prosperous Housing Market and nation. We have a great opportunity to do big things this year. Lets answer that call for action. Thank you. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, Shaun Donovan. [applause] the next washington journal, we will talk to the president of the league of conversation voters. Formerk of key governor Homeland Security secretary joins us to talk about threats about u. S. Security. Taking overellen the federal reserve, we will examine some of the Central Banks upcoming decisions on Monetary Policy with a reporter for the wall street journal. Plus your calls, tweets, and facebook comments. Washington journal airs every morning at 7 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Senator rand paul was our guest this weekend on newsmakers. We talk to him about the debt ceiling and foreign aid. The potential 2016 president ial candidate talked about his relationship with the Senate Democratic leader. I like senator reed is a person. We have had many good conversations. Im so try to figure out a way that i can do things with him and to me that means we dont agree on every issue, but we would try to narrow the issues. I said the same thing to president obama recently. I said we dont agree on everything but there are some things we do agree on. Thats never the focus on those things. Both parties worry about jobs going overseas. We worry about our economy and joblessness here. One of the things we could do is let itrican profits, come back at a lower tax rate. It will bring in tax revenue that can be used for infrastructure. It is something that the president actually agrees with me on. I said lets make it part of include manyt will parts, many of which we will disagree on. Lets take a few items that we agree on, and i have said this was senator reed, lets Work Together. We can pass that next week. You can watch her interview with him this sunday at 10 a. M. And again at 6 p. M. Eastern right here on cspan. I think it is an evolutionary process. You grow into this role. My sense is that you never get comfortable you are always pushing for change and growth, not just in yourself but in the issues you care about. You are never done. There was never a point in time that you feel like, i am now here and i can do this the same way all the time. It is always changing. First Lady Michelle obama monday night on cspan. President obama and the first lady joined thousands this week at the annual National Prayer breakfast in washington. The washington talked about religious freedom and tolerance and he praised americas commitment to freedom of worship. The event featured a keynote address, s. It featured democrats and republicans. It is an hour and 45 minutes. It is nice to have the president of the United States here, isnt it . [applause] it is great to have the first lady. Thank you so much. [applause] you may be seated. We will begin the program. We are so glad yall are all here today and for our foreign friends i did say yall. There are a lot of things we appreciate about england and the british, but they didnt give us a second person plural and we had to fill that in. It is yall. We are glad yall are here. That yall includes everyone here as well as the hundreds in the overflow room joining us by video and includes the cspan audience. And we have many faithful people praying for this breakfast right now in the prayer room. Together janice and i will lead the house of representatives Prayer Breakfast every thursday morning from 8 00 to 9 00 when we are in session and this is just an adjunct of what the senate Prayer Breakfast does on thursdays and house Prayer Breakfast does on thursdays but one thing is sure. The singing today will be much better than we have at our breakfast. It is pretty good. But i will not be singing today. That already makes it much better. I do have to say the breakfast is better where we eat than this. But that is another matter. [laughter] these people paid a lot of money for this breakfast. I wish it were really true that you get what you pay for. You know, you can see why i have trials and tribulations with this man. I came to congress not that long ago, about two and a half years ago. When i stepped off the plane in washington, d. C. , i remember reflecting on the great words of jesus. Turn the other cheek, forgive 70 times seven. And i thought that will get me through the first week. I grew up with the red letter bible that highlighted the words of jesus. And i thought about that a lot, too. This is the jesus who said love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who treat you badly. He said everyone who makes themselves important will be made humble but everyone who makes himself humble will be made important. Whoever wants to be your leader must be your servant. Jesus said it is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy for i didnt come to invite good people but to invite sinners. Those words used to be easier to live by before i came it congress. Where fighting for leadership and sound bites and making the evening news is common practice. The house is a pretty cantankerous place but what we are trying to do in the prayer group is provide a sanctuary from the bitter discourse. [applause] as you can imagine, it is not easy. But it is working. Coming together around jesus and prayer has a way of calming us and opening us to if you possibilities. My faith in jesus is inherited from two great strong women. My grandmother on my mothers said was a church of christ missionary and was born in tokyo and my grandmother on my fathers said turned to god for strength when she faced the task of raising seven little boys all under the age of 10 when her husband suddenly died. That journey of favorite from both of these women ultimately helped me find my journey of faith. It has always been a great source of inspiration. I believe in the power of prayer and its ability to unlock doors and soften hearts. Our group is important and essential in keeping me grounded in my hope for change. I cannot imagine doing this job without that fellowship. But i will be honest. It is not always been easy. [laughter] it is a struggle. Some days you have to dig deep to find the resolve to love your enemies and put aside the fundamental differences and pray for each other. I have to dig really deep, louie. When you held that press conference criticizing that poor woman for buying crab legs for food stamps. You were not there. It could have been immitation crab. Really. Our experience encourages us to think of a fellowship of nonlike minded people with the lord in the middle of it all. [applause] i love her. What can i say . Then again i have a sister who is a democrat so. That is how i grew up. There were four siblings and we would argue and fuss. But we loved each other. And we could still enjoy each other and heaven help anybody that tried to come after one of the four of us because we were tight no matter what we argued about right before somebody might try to take us on. You might understand then it is easy for me, i feel like im right at home, people say are you ready for washington and back stabbing and meanness, i explain i was the deacon of a baptist church. I was ready. I was blessed to come from a family where my mother and father were followers of jesus and some time after my father died i mean my mother died and father remarried and she loves me. Go figure. But i was raised in a home of followers of jesus. So that was not too difficult. We learned that jesus was the only great leader in the history who said im the way, the truth, the life, no one goes to paradise except going through me. So, as c. S. Lewis said, he didnt give us a lot of choice. You have to either believe he was a liar in essence or a lunatic or he was who he said he was, the lord. It reminded me of when i had kathy one day ask me, louie, you want supper. I said sure. What are the choices. She said yes or no. It is kind of the choice you get. [laughter] anyway, but a lawyer and my dad, it took him a while to get mother and dad wanted me to go to med school and they were pretty broken hearted when i went to law school. Dad has kind of recovered from that. It was a lawyer that asked jesus, tell us what is the greatest commandment. He said, love the lord. He said, the second is love one another. On those two things hang all of the other law. Everything. In scripture. That came true for me, it made more sense, my mother was found to have a brain tumor in the late 1970s. They told her it could be back in a year or 20 years. It took 15 before it took her. The neurologist at one point said she may have six months to live. At point this brilliant woman who put herself through baylor without any help, she was without any help, she was reduced to a wheelchair and could not really speak without really struggling. So all four siblings would come and spend time. We decided just the four children would spend a weekend with mother. Since we were getting closer to the end. And it was great. Saturday morning we sat around the breakfast table. There we were, good natured but going back and forth, giving each other a hard time but remembering things, discussing old times, laughing. We were probably there two or three hours before mother finally was able to struggle and speak a word. But it had been such a wonderful time. Just laughing and enjoying bringing mother, reminding her of great things and fun times. She finally spoke up and said this we got quiet. She was the reason we were there. She struggled on an