Bush Fiddles While the Cuntry Burns

 

We all know about the burning of Rome, while Nero fiddled. The housing and mortgage meltdown feels like the burning of Rome, while President Bush does not ‘get’ the urgency of the situation. Normally, I don’t write about politics, but today, I am making an exception. The Senate has proposed a modest housing reprieve with tax breaks for homebuilders, a $7,000 tax credit for buyers who purchase a foreclosed property, $10 billion in tax-exempt bonds for housing agencies to assist strapped homeowners in refinancing their homes and $100 million to counsel borrowers. The White House is responding that this bill would do more harm than good. President Bush has proposed an alternative which would require lenders and investors to write down their loans and would also require the homeowner to pay 3% down payment. Most of the strapped homeowners cannot drag 3% to the table. If these homeowners could have found 3%, they would have refinanced their homes a long time ago.  

 

This crisis has dragged the economy down; caused lenders to stringently tighten their guidelines; caused Americans to have little confidence in the President; caused pockets of foreclosed homes across the country and the White House says – the bill would do more harm than good?? Since the other White House proposals have done little or nothing to assist Joe Homeowner, and this new proposal is too limited to assist more than 100,000 homeowners, this situation can only get worse. I spoke to a homeowner the other day and she indicated that the $600 rebate from the stimulus would not pay ¼ of her mortgage.

 

Most of us have done all the belt-tightening we can do. Isn’t it time for Congress to do something to assist the average homeowner? And to get the President’s attention? All of us know horror stories of honest, hard-working people losing their homes because of the declining market conditions and the inability to refinance. I’m not a big advocate of Government programs, but it seems that something needs to be done at the Federal level to prevent further erosion of our housing and mortgage markets. How much longer can the White House ignore this situation? Or, does Bush enjoy fiddling while Rome burns?