Homeowner rescue awaits President Bush's signature
Congress approved mortgage relief for 400,000 struggling homeowners Saturday as part of an election-year housing plan that also aims to calm jittery financial markets and bolster the sagging economy. President Bush said he would sign it promptly, despite reservations.
The measure, regarded as the most significant housing legislation in decades, lets homeowners who cannot afford their payments refinance into more affordable government-backed loans rather than losing their homes.
It offers a temporary financial lifeline to troubled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — pillars of the home loan market whose losses have sparked investor fears — and tightens controls over the two government-sponsored businesses.
What began as a showdown between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress over how far the government should go in rescuing homeowners evolved into a bipartisan effort that could be the last such compromise before Bush leaves office in January.
In a rare Saturday session, the Senate voted 72-13 to send the bill to the president; the House passed it Wednesday.
Bush had withdrawn his veto threat earlier in the week over $3.9 billion in neighborhood grants. He contended the money would benefit lenders who helped cause the mortgage meltdown, encouraging them to foreclose rather than work with borrowers.
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Member Comments
Posted By: mariadcruze @ 07/25/2008 3:37:08 PM
Comment: mcain is a hyprocrite for still continuing ties was phil gram he thinks" America is a nation of winers" Mcain is so out of touch with the economy that i think any one is better than him. Our unemployment rate is going up, the price of gas is riduclous, food prices are going up. What did the republican party do for the country nothing at all. We a have war in iraq the reason is unknown, we have 5,000 dead troop what was the reason for us to go to iraq in the first place? bin laden is still not caught? Bush made america poor and that will continue if mcidiot is the president. Tax cuts for the wealty. obama 08,12 change we can believe.
Posted By: Nins @ 07/11/2008 11:47:34 PM
Comment: Know why McCain wants to distance himself from former Senator Phil Gramm? It is not just because of Gramm's recent obnoxious remarks calling Americans "a nation of whiners" and that unemployed Americans are in "a mental recession." In fact, those remarks were so obnoxious that I wonder if they were engineered just to provide McCain an excuse for publicly distancing himself from Gramm. This issue is a lot deeper than it looks on the surface.
When Gramm was a Senator he was chair of the Committee on Banking, and in that capacity he was able to push through the legislation now known as the "Enron Loophole." This loophole allowed US investment banks to bypass the Federal regulations governing futures trading, and is the reason why the investment banks were able to falsely inflate the prices of oil, wheat, corn and other commodities through massive futures trading, causing your costs of gas, heating oil and food to go through the roof.
Gramm was a member of McCain's campaign team, but now Gramms' name is turning to mud. In addition to the Enron loophole, Gramm pushed through the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act in 1999, which got rid of the laws that seperate banking, insurance and brokerage activities in America. Essentially, this Act did away with all of the good laws written after the Great Depression to protect us from another Wall Street/Banking Industry collapse. That's right, Gramm stripped the system of it's safe guards nine years ago, and guess what? The value of the dollar has nose-dived, three major economic institutions have failed, Wall Street is highly unstable, and we are in the midst of a worsening recession.
Now you could say that this is not Gramm's fault, that he didn't know what the outcome of his actions would be. However, it turns out that the same investment banks that benefited from the Enron loophole and from the Gramm Act gave more than a million dollars to Gramm's campaign. Uh oh. A Congressional hearing is going to be convened to investigate this. And McCain wants to have noting to do with Gramm, wants us to forget that Gramm has been a key player on McCain's campaign team. Gramm was McCain's campaign CO-CHAIR and LEADING ECONOMIC ADVISER. Previously, McCain had said that he planned to appoint Gramm as SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. It looks like McCain is scratching that idea, now that the public is finding out about Gramm. Didn't McCain's team bother to find out about Gramm before publicly considering him as Secretary of the Treasury?
With Gramm in the driver's seat as McCain's leading economic adviser, now you know why economists and analysts are saying that McCain's economic policy plans are untenable.
Posted By: Thevail @ 06/24/2008 9:38:38 PM
Comment: "Corporations are good only insofar as they strengthen America. When they start to weaken us, we need to re-evaluate the rules and regulations governing business."
Corporations are only good insofar as they push the agenda of America...when WE own THEM fine..
But for all but about 3% of Americans THEY own US..and they do not have our best interests at heart.
If you are sick of seeing America's honor and citizens sold the highest bidder..
Obama '08