Congress has an opportunity to spur job creation and recovery from the foreclosure crisis—and at little cost to the taxpayer.

The mortgage crisis, spurred by abusive high-cost loans, has devastated families across much of the country. Communities must contend with the considerable social and economic costs of vacant, boarded-up buildings, while families must rebuild their lives after losing their homes.

Pages and pages of ratios and figures don’t usually fire up a crowd, but they do affect the rash of foreclosures our country is experiencing and Americans are fired up about that.  One of the driving factors behind the foreclosure crisis was lenders putting unsuspecting borrowers into loans they could not reasonably afford.  Borrowers of color, women, the elderly, and low-income families were favorite targets for these practices. Thankfully, legislators recently passed a bill that includes the modernization of a tool critical to fighting discrimination in the housing market.

Microfinance has officially arrived, as evidenced by recent debate about its core purpose.  For example, the industry has been portrayed in a New York Times article as seeking to indebt the poor and the vulnerable for personal profit.  The recent controversy around microfinance has demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the industry among intelligent commentators.  However, the positive outcome is that it has revealed the growing role that microfinance plays in the global economy to bring financial services to underserved populations.

The ABA Education Foundation’s annual Teach Children to Save Day on April 27 is a national campaign that raises awareness about the important role that banks and bankers play in helping young people develop lifelong savings habits. The campaign has reached 3.4 million young people with the help of some 80,000 banker volunteers through its annual awareness day and the Teach Children to Save website.

Would you take a loan with interest rates of 100 percent or more? Unlikely. Then why did 8.7 million American taxpayers do that in 2006?  The answer is that they were promised fast cash, but in many cases, were unaware that they were taking out a loan at all. US taxpayers in 2006 spent over $900 million to get their tax refunds a few days early.