Steve Benen, of Josh Marshall's blog's, comments on a McClatchy story on the substance of the Bush mortgage proposals. I assume there will be serious analyses. Something's rather odd.
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Day late, several dollars short
The good news is the Bush White House has unveiled a plan to assist homeowners who are poised to lose their homes in the midst of the nation's crunch and housing slump. The bad news, as McClatchy's Kevin Hall reports, is that the president's plan is very thin, leaves most affected homeowners behind, and duplicates efforts that are already underway. (via TP)
The plan was announced days before Congress returns from its August recess with housing issues high on its agenda. The proposals, however, duplicate efforts already under way by Congress and other federal agencies, would help at most 21 percent of the homeowners facing foreclosures and would do little to help areas in which inflated real estate prices are a problem.
Bush called on Democrats to approve a modernization of the Federal Housing Administration, which passed the House of Representatives last year with bipartisan support but was quashed by Senate Republicans.
He promised to require greater disclosure from lenders, a move on which federal bank regulators already have provided guidance. He promised to get tough with unscrupulous mortgage brokers, but they're largely regulated on the state level. And during a briefing Friday, a senior administration official acknowledged that the plan would do little to help states with high real estate prices, such as California.
At least 2 million foreclosures tied to the sub-prime meltdown are now expected; the administration's plan should provide refinancing options to, at the most, less than a fourth of them by the end of next year.
--Steve Benen
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