The social engineering work of Obama in the first year has been truly overwhelming. Rahm Emanuel has tried his sleazy little best to shove through every far left liberal dream in the past year using his teleprompter reader to shill for the plans. Two successes insured the failure of the rest. The abortive stimulus package, a 1000 page, unread bill laden with earmarks sailed through in record time. It was followed by HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program. Remember, the” you pay your neighbor’s mortgage” plan.
Then came card check, cap and trade, and health care reform. This barrage began the groundswell of anger still sweeping the country.
Little has been said in the mass media about HAMP. But, local media is feasting on the plan. Every night local media in Phoenix has a story about a homeowner about to lose their house but unable to get the help promised by HAMP. Local media always hammers whichever bank holds the mortgage. There are never any details as to why the house is being lost, just a story about another family who can’t get help despite the promises from Obama that help is on the way.
Here are the facts. The White House has the hammer on Freddie and Fannie to make HAMP work. The time and effort both are putting into trying to make a bad idea work is taking away from the effort needed to get both Freddie and Fannie back on their feet. So far, the big plan to keep millions of homeowners from losing their homes has ginned up 903,000 trial modifications and must 66,000 permanent fixes. David Moffett, the CEO of Freddie warned the administration that the loan-modification goals were unrealistic. He said homeowners whose houses weren’t worth what they owe are walking away and those who have participated are re-defaulting within months.
Still the administration keeps the heat on Freddie and Fannie and the banks to step it up. Detachment from reality is one” given” in the Obama administration. They just don’t get the realities of the housing bubble and the aftermath. Too many people who could not afford a mortgage got one from Barney and Chris, the politicians pulling the strings at Freddie and Fannie. No banks would have approved those mortgages if the guarantees weren’t there from the government. As home prices dropped mortgages went underwater. As unemployment went up, homeowners began to fall behind on mortgage payments. While homeowners and the media say, “we just need a little help.” The truth is they need a lot of help. They need the price of the house to go back where it was when they bought it. They need a job to pay the mortgage. They need a mortgage they can afford which may not even fit any house, let alone the one they are living in now. Tweaking mortgages by lowering interest rates or extending payback times don’t fix 99% of the problems.
So, the bottom line, like closing Gitmo, this was a bad idea. It upset millions of Americans who felt it was a different form of income redistribution, you pay your mortgage, your neighbor doesn’t, you now send tax dollars to Obama to pay the neighbor’s mortgage. It has upset millions who have tried to use the program to keep their houses only to find it won’t work, can’t work, and never could have worked for their situation. The media fans the flames by blaming the banks who are in the middle of another bad Obama idea. Meanwhile, Freddie and Fannie are in a rising tide of new red ink. Freddie has 3.87% 90 days past due, up from 1.72% a year earlier, Fannie is 5.29%, up from 2.13%. It wouldn’t be too bad if 9 of 10 mortgages were not insured with the two companies.
If you can screw up HAMP, just think what you can do with health care.
