Republicans Obstructing Relief in Housing Crisis

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.