Republicans Obstructing Relief in Housing Crisis

Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! at 2:31 PM on May 29, 2008.

Republican governors tend to be less ideological and more practical than the extremists and fanatics their party routinely sends to Congress. They have to actually govern, something that is anathema to the Inside the Beltway GOP-- from Bush and Cheney all the way down to the very bottom of the barrel: naysayers Mean Jean Schmidt and James Inhofe. This morning the two heads of the National Governors Association-- Republican Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Democrat Ed Rendell (PA)-- urged, strongly urged, Congress and the White House to get their collective asses in gear and enact housing-stimulus legislation "so that states can rebound from decreasing tax revenue and increasing crime and neighborhood blight due to a record foreclosure rate."

Pawlenty, chairman of the association, noted that most governors are attempting to deal with the issue because 47 states in 2007 had a foreclosure rate that was at least 20 percent higher than 2006. "I find very little public resistance to using government money to help people who unwittingly got trapped in this," said Rendell, vice chairman, after appearing at an NGA summit on the crisis. "We're not looking to help people who took risks to buy McMansions."

Maybe they should also mention this to John McCain who has been going around the country stirring up hatred by telling Republicans that the only people who need help are undeserving and irresponsible losers who should get a second (or third) job and stop taking vacations. He never seems to get around to explaining his role-- and the role of his party-- in dismantling the federal regulatory agencies that were meant to protect ordinary Americans from unrestrained predatory capitalism. Earlier this month the House passed bills sponsored by Barney Frank and Maxine Waters to assist families that were victims of the Republican/Blue Dog deregulation craze. Bush promptly announced that if his boys McConnell, Shelby and McCain can't filibuster it to death in the Senate, he'll veto it. The only Republicans who voted for Waters' Neighborhood Stabilization Act of 2008 were a handful of announced retirees plus a few who are feeling the heat from enraged constituents back home and realize, like Mario Diaz-Balart and his crooked brother Lincoln, that they are in genuine danger of losing their seats.

Rendell, a Democrat, said he supports a measure by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank that would allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure up to $300 billion in new fixed-rate mortgages for at-risk subprime borrowers, providing that their lenders voluntarily write down their current notes to below-market value. Dodd has a similar measure. Rendell said he would like to see two modifications to the Frank bill, which passed the House this month: language to ensure that those who go through the process would not suffer any downgrade to their credit scores, and an increase in the FHA guarantee under the proposal. In its current version, the Frank bill insures the new loan to only 90 percent of the property's current value, while Rendell said he would like to see the rate raised up to 97 percent to get more participation. "It would more likely produce the results we are looking for. You are asking lenders to take a hit and they got to get that in return," he said. Pawlenty, a Republican who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick, said he would like Frank to reach out to get more bipartisan support, but he did not go into specifics of the bill. Rendell agreed, adding, "We need action here, [even] if that means compromising some tenets of the Frank program."

On one aspect of Frank's bill more frightened Republicans abandoned Bush and the GOP leadership-- voting with the Democrats-- than sticking with their clueless leaders. 94 Republican voted with Bush and Boehner and 95 voted, for a change, for sane public policy. And the 94 ultimate rubber stamp fanatics? All the usual suspects from Boehner, Blunt, Cole, Putnam and Cantor at the top of the dungheap to sad little zombie-like backbenchers Michelle Bachmann (MN), Michael McCaul (TX), Darrell Issa (CA), Scott Garrett (NJ), John Kline (MN), John Shadegg (AZ), Dana Rohrabacher (CA) and, of course, Mean Jean Schmidt (OH). Watch Barney Frank slapping down one of the worst of all the rubber stamps in Congress, Scott Garrett of New Jersey (above).

You watched Garrett? His northern New Jersey constituents aren't stuck with this bizarre anomoly. This year they have the opportunity to elect one of the most outstanding candidates running for any office anywhere in America, Dennis Shulman. We contacted him this evening and asked him about Garrett's out-of-touch record on the housing crisis.

"Sadly for northern New Jersey and the nation, Scott Garrett is completely out of touch with the reality of our economy. This past fall, Garrett disparaged claims of a housing crisis as fear mongering and claimed that 'under 2 percent of the entire housing market segment is having a problem. The rest of the economy is good and the rest of the housing market is doing good.'

Garrett's is just as wrong about the economy as a whole-- indeed, as recently as January, 2008, Garrett argued that 'fundamentally the national economy is in good shape.' Northern New Jersey and the nation deserve representatives who are in touch with the challenges their constituents face day in and day out."

If you decide to donate to Dennis' campaign this week-- and we hope you will (and right here)-- please remember to add one penny to whatever you give so that it counts as a vote towards the Air America check.

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Tagged as: gop, mccain, mortgage crisis