Republicans Block Consideration of Housing Relief Package in Senate

[babylonsister]

Republicans Block Consideration of Housing Relief Package in Senate

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 29, 2008; Page A03


Senate Republicans yesterday blocked consideration of a bill designed to prop up the struggling housing industry, declaring that the Democratic-backed provisions would harm mortgage lenders and inflame the housing crisis.

With a 48 to 46 vote, the Senate did not gain the 60 votes needed to halt a threatened filibuster on the housing package. The vote capped a week of parliamentary gridlock in the Senate, which spent nearly three days mired in an Iraq war debate without casting a substantive vote on the underlying bill mandating troop withdrawal.

Democrats, stymied in their effort to curb President Bush's Iraq policies, had hoped to begin debate on the housing bill to address the public's anxiety over the economy, which has supplanted the war in recent polls as the issue of greatest concern.

The housing proposal includes billions of dollars for local communities to buy up subprime mortgages and a controversial rewrite of bankruptcy laws to allow judges to slash interest rates for low-income homeowners. The mortgage industry has waged a stiff lobbying campaign against the bankruptcy provision.

Democrats mocked Bush's statements at yesterday's news conference, where he urged giving the $168 billion stimulus package approved this month a "chance to kick in first."

"That, to me, is straight out of the Herbert Hoover playbook," Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters, adding that his bankruptcy measure would save family homes. "Right now, there will be a question on the floor of the Senate as to whether the mortgage bankers are going to win or the American families facing foreclosure are going to win."

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803722.html

[fasttense]

1. Anyone willing to take bets on who wins?

"Right now, there will be a question on the floor of the Senate as to whether the mortgage bankers are going to win or the American families facing foreclosure are going to win."

The American family has been losing for the last thirty years. Why should anything change?

[El Pinko]

2. For once, I think the republicans are right, for the wrong reasons.

Homebuyers should NOT be bailed out. Bailing people out who made speculative purchases that went south should NOT be the business of the federal government. The 30-day moratorium on foreclosures does nothing but postpone the inevitable for 30 days. These people bought houses they could not afford, adn staying in them longer does not do them any good, when they could be renting for much less.

As for the fall of housing prices - homes are still as much as 30% overvalued in many areas, in comparison to long-term trends and local incomes. Trying to prop them up only helps wealthy people who can already make their payments and locks middle-income people out of the housing market.

The housing market needs to be allowed to correct. Lenders may need to be bailed out, but marginal homedebtors who made poor choices are going to have to move on to cheaper digs, and if they were coerced or bamboozled by lenders, then maybe they should have a class-action suit against the lenders.


If Congress wants to give "relief" to people, raise the damn minimum wage, NOW, stop companies from offshoring any more jobs, NOW, and give them incentives to RAISE WAGES TO REGULAR PEOPLE WHICH HAVE BEEN IN THE TOILET for A DECADE OR MORE. The problem is not falling house prices, it's stagnant income for the lower half of American working people.

[Birthmark]

3. Kinda good news, imo.

Looks like the Republicans are going to make themselves the minority for another couple of generations. The price is a bit steep, though, for the homeowners.