Rep. Eshoo recently held a telephone town hall with residents from Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Daniel DeBolt, staff writer for the Mountain View Voice, reported on the conference call with Eshoo and over 9,000 residents from those towns:

Washington's lackluster efforts to represent the interests of America's poor and middle class was the focus of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo's telephone town hall meeting last week.

Eshoo said that stopping the country's foreclosure crisis was key to an economic recovery.

"I've seen so many people losing their homes who thought they could pay their mortgages," said a woman named Adrian from Sunnyvale.

"It is a horrendous and catastrophic situation," Eshoo sympathized.

Eshoo said she wants to allow people to refinance their homes with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans at the current low rates — near 4 percent — and allow those who are "underwater" in their mortgages to only pay on the principle of their loans.

She and other California Democrats have written a letter pushing President Obama to implement those reforms, encouraging him to use his executive powers to bypass Congress.

"Imagine if everyone could refinance at that low rate, what that would mean," Eshoo said. "I think the (Obama) administration really underestimated what this meant to the national economy. I don't think the national economy is going to make the comeback we're all hoping and praying for unless this very issue, the housing foreclosure prevention, really takes place."

A caller named Bob from Sunnyvale noted a large problem of campaign finance, which has created a situation where "a politician's first job is fundraising" and "their second job is politician."

Eshoo clearly agreed with the caller, saying there is now a massive amount of money flowing into politics, which is "corrosive and corruptive." Eshoo called for public financing of political campaigns.

"I think the American people are going to have to rise up against this and send a very direct message to whoever is in Congress," Eshoo said. "This system is simply undemocratic. Can you imagine if money were taken out of politics what kinds of decisions would come out of Congress?"

She also called for a reversal of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, which allowed corporations and unions to spend as much as they like to support or attack political candidates.

The amount of money entering politics "has increased to tsunami levels" and is "hurting our country," she said.

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