Congress is preparing to take up a comprehensive plan that would fundamentally reform the home mortgage market, starting this year.

Had the same rules and standards been in place earlier in the decade, congressional supporters say, it could have eliminated much of the funny-money loans, slipshod underwriting and Wall Street abuses that distorted the market from 2002 through 2006. The boom wouldn't have been as big, and the bust might not have happened.

The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2009 was introduced 26 March by co-authors Reps. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Brad Miller and Melvin Watt It is expected to move quickly through the House this month and go to the Senate by May. The odds of passage in some form are high, according to banking and housing industry lobbyists.

Washington Post