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Now Even Jesse Jackson is Getting Involved in the Subprime Mess
By JLP | December 7, 2007
Geez…
Now Jesse Jackson has written an op-ed piece ($) for the Wall Street Journal. The title of his piece is “A Marshall Plan for Mortgages.”
Jackson opens with:
This holiday season, families will reflect on the past year and make new goals and resolutions for 2008. But for the two million homeowners who face foreclosure over the next year because of the subprime mortgage crisis, their New Year’s hopes rest not with themselves, but with policy makers in Washington and the investment community on Wall Street.
This is a time for Samaritans, not Scrooges. The enormity of the unfolding crisis is clear. Unfortunately, the remedies to the subprime crisis that have emerged will only slow the threatened economic tsunami, not prevent it.
The Bush administration’s proposed five-year freeze on home-loan rates, while a step in the right direction, doesn’t go far enough. The plan, unveiled yesterday, simply doesn’t help most of the families facing a foreclosure threat. Of the 6.5 million subprime borrowers in total, only about 750,000, or 12%, would be helped, according to some estimates. They are the homeowners who are up-to-date now with their loan payments but would fall behind and risk foreclosure when the loan resets in the coming year.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Jesse Jackson opinion if he didn’t mention the word “victim:”
Many of the victims of aggressive mortgage brokers were single women, seniors on fixed income, young couples, Latinos and African Americans. They live in every neighborhood in every one of our major cities, and elsewhere. In one block alone on West Madison Street in Chicago, every one of the homeowners is in default on their current mortgage terms. In neighborhood after neighborhood in Chicago, foreclosures have soared to more than 50 per square mile.
Folks, this has become nothing but a way to redistribute wealth. Taking taxpayer money and giving it to people who can’t afford their homes is the most progressive taxation there is. It bugs me the way politicians can “take the high road” with taxpayer money.
Oh, in case you’re interested, you can refresh your memory by reading about the real Marshall Plan.
