Obama on housing: ‘Extend a hand’ to homeowners
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Sen. Barack Obama joins the housing speech parade today with what appears to be a difference-splitter: more government action and intervention than John McCain proposed this week, but not as much as Hillary Clinton favors.
Read the entire Obama speech here.
Reuters, via CNBC: ‘Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for greater government regulation of the U.S. financial system Thursday and proposed a new $30-billion economic stimulus plan to help homeowners. ... He proposed a $30-billion stimulus plan that would provide relief to areas hardest hit by the housing crisis, and an extension of unemployment insurance for those out of work.’
L.A. Times: ‘Democratic candidate Barack Obama ... called for reform of the nation’s regulatory system, immediate relief for homeowners caught in the sub-prime mortgage crisis and a $30-billion stimulus package to boost the economy. ‘If we can extend a hand to banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to Americans who are struggling through no fault of their own,’ he said.’
On this language, McCain, Clinton and Obama agree: They support aid to the blameless. Who doesn’t? The idea that there is some discrete group of blameless, faultless borrowers is a convenient piece of Washington fiction that ignores recent history. Everybody in this mess made mistakes. Borrowers took out loans they didn’t understand to buy houses they couldn’t afford. Some borrowers understood the risks they were taking; some didn’t. Lenders made spectacularly bad loans because someone (Wall Street) was stupid enough to buy the loans. Washington witnessed the entire train wreck and declared it a good thing as it was happening, and only now sees the wreckage.
It’s hard to see how an intelligent government response will somehow emerge from collective ignorance of what happened.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images