All Aboard the Bailout Train!

I missed most of President Obama’s mortgage delinquency bailout speech that he travelled to Arizona on our dime to deliver. What I heard were just words. Oh yeah – and numbers, big numbers.

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged $275 billion to cut mortgage payments for as many as 9 million struggling homeowners and enable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep loan rates down.

The plan includes $75 billion to reduce monthly payments for borrowers, helps homeowners with loans owned or backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance at lower rates and promises incentives to industry. Obama will double by $200 billion funding available for Fannie and Freddie to buy loans.

Um, didn’t Fannie and Freddie get us into this mess? And how is keeping people in homes they can’t afford going to help the economy? Like GM and Chrysler they’ll be back in a few months for another bailout.

“Congress stands ready to complement the administration’s efforts by action on” pending legislation to enact the bankruptcy law changes, Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi said Congress also will act on legislation introduced last month by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, to spur borrower and mortgage- industry participation in the Hope for Homeowners program.

Here we go again. Barney Frank’s the same bozo who said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were doing just fine and did not need more regulation.

It gets even better (if you’re a socialist).

Homeowners also are eligible for $1,000 annually for five years for remaining current on their loans, according to the plan. The cash will be applied to reducing the principal balance of the loan, according to a White House fact sheet.

Fantastic! We’re going to pay people for doing what they should have done in the first place! And it isn’t limited to modest little homes.

The multi-step plan to help homeowners with mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie will apply to so-called conforming loans, which are limited to $625,500 in the most expensive real-estate markets and $417,000 everywhere else.

Those of us who didn’t take out half a million dollar mortgages on homes we couldn’t afford now get to foot the bill for those who did. This is change that some people can believe in. The rest of us, well, not so much.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.