Over the weekend, the Senate went ahead and passed the housing relief bill that has been making its way through Congress over the past few weeks. The final deal-closer for the bill, which President Bush repeatedly threatened to veto, was the addition of aid for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
While the housing relief bill is meant to help 400,000 people avoid foreclosure, there are some things that are cause for worry, reports Wisebread:
- Underwriting standards are loose for those in trouble. This is worrying because already shaky situations are going to be further supported, while the inevitable creeps up on them. Then, when the failure does take place, taxpayers are on the hook.
- Treasury allowed to do whatever is deemed necessary -- extend credit, offer loans, buy equity -- to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac afloat. This could easily result in large expenses for taxpayers.
- Congress raises the limit on national debt. Not sure why we even have a limit. As *need* arises, Congress will just keep raising the limit, in turn raising our interest payments.
- PayPal and credit card transactions all need to be reported to the IRS. This is sort of just in there. The government is obviously looking for more revenue, but there are definite privacy issues here as well.
What do you think, overall, of the housing relief bill?
It seems to be just another excuse for the government to seize more power and infringe on the rights of people. As well, a huge bailout of the banks and Fannie/Freddie is papered over with a token attempt to help 400,000 homeowners. Of course, tens of millions are facing lowered property values and potential foreclosure, but helping a small number (400k) is the excuse used to steal money from hundreds of millions through inflation and hand it over to the banks.
Posted by: foreclosurefish | July 28, 2008 10:10 AM | Permalink to Comment