President Bush and some members of Congress want to dub the Federal Housing Administration as the White Knight who will rescue America from the mortgage mess. They want the agency to help homeowners refinance their subprime loans by offering to guarantee lenders it will cover the tab if the refinanced …
When Congress passed its economic “stimulus” package this February, lawmakers tried to make it look like the plan would help lower-income Americans while not benefiting the rich. They made the $600 tax credit ($1,200 for married couples) refundable and excluded anyone making more than $87,000 ($174,000 for couples) from qualifying. …
Two-time former Estonia Prime Minister Mart Laar visited The Heritage Foundation today, extolling the benefits the flat tax brought to his country. First passed in Estonia in 1994, Laar cited two immediate benefits he witnessed when the flat tax was implemented: First, government revenues went up as the simplicity of …
Now that the Senate has passed its “Foreclosure Enhancement Act,” attention turns to the House, which will hold hearings on its own response to the housing “crisis.” As the Christian Science Monitor reports, “at the heart of the emerging consensus is a bigger role for the Federal Housing Administration in …
With President Bush’s letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday and John McCain’s speech in Brooklyn yesterday, now all three presidential candidates and the White House are supporting plans that would expose taxpayers to hundreds of billions of dollars in housing market risk. All three plans would set extremely bad precedents …
The early narrative of the housing market collapse featured all the usual suspects: sleazy mortgage bankers, shadowy lenders and pushy Wall Street brokers – all of them preying on unsuspecting homebuyers. But now we’re starting to get, as radio legend Paul Harvey puts it, “the rest of the story.” Turns …
Polling shows that while 61% Americans oppose bail outs for Wall Street investment companies, 56% support “the federal government taking steps to help prevent people from losing their homes.” Apparently, who is asking for government help and why is crucial to public support for federal government intervention. That is one …
The White House isn’t buying the Senate housing bill. As Benton Ives reports in Congressional Quarterly, President Bush is not too thrilled with the bailout proposal. Why? “The bill will likely do more harm than good by bailing out lenders and speculators and passing on costs to other Americans who …
