Bush Protects Subprime Lender’s Bailout Funds From Irresponsible Mortgage Owners’ Selfish Needs… Mortgage Payments, Roofs Over Head, etc.

Even before the House passed a new plan last week to prevent foreclosures, President Bush threatened to veto the bill, calling it “overly burdensome.” The bill is not burdensome enough.

To help an estimated 500,000 borrowers switch to federally insured loans, it relies on the voluntary participation of lenders, an approach that has doomed other foreclosure-prevention efforts.Earlier this year, Mr. Bush derided a modest plan to provide $4 billion to states and localities to buy foreclosed properties, saying that buying up empty homes helps only “the lenders or the speculators.” Actually, it protects entire neighborhoods and local economies from the effects of foreclosures by preventing a greater buildup of unsold homes and a further drop in prices.

Most egregious, Mr. Bush has resisted efforts to allow bankrupt homeowners to have their mortgages modified under court protection, parroting the mortgage industry’s overwrought objections to what is arguably the best way to avoid preventable foreclosures. Letting homeowners have the loans modified in court would keep them in their homes, helping to stabilize the housing market while inflicting the considerable pain of bankruptcy on both lender and borrower.

When Mr. Bush hasn’t been busy saying no to worthy efforts, he has been endorsing Orwellian-named programs that have failed to address the problem effectively. Hope Now, the mortgage industry alliance that pledged a big effort five months ago to modify subprime loans, has barely made a dent. Project Lifeline, announced last February, has yet to release any results. The Times reported last month that another program much touted by Mr. Bush, FHA Secure, has helped fewer than 2,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

Meanwhile, defaults, the first link in the foreclosure chain, are running at an annual pace of 2.2 million so far this year.

But the Bush administration’s free-market biases have apparently convinced officials that bold action would impede a necessary economic correction. That is misguided. The housing bust is at the root of the economy’s problems, and foreclosures are its most serious manifestation. House prices have collapsed to a point where they are creating a negative spiral: price drops provoke foreclosures, which in turn provoke even lower prices, and so on. The danger now is not too much government intervention but too little.

The House is to be commended for defying Mr. Bush’s veto threat, especially the 39 Republicans who joined all the House Democrats. When the Senate considers a similar measure, Republicans there are likely to face pressure, too. At least the Senate bill will probably not be considered until after Memorial Day. While home for the holiday, senators are sure to hear from constituents about the need for mortgage relief. That might inspire lawmakers to do what Mr. Bush is unwilling to do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/opinion/12mon2.html