Tag: Politics

Mortgage Bailout: Who pays for it?

So the government has signed into law a new bill to give “mortgage relief” to people who got into trouble with their loan. That sounds nice doesn’t it?

While people who hit hard times when the real estate market took a down turn and their houses were worth less than they paid for them, all I can say is “life’s a bitch”. There has never been a guarantee that your house will increase in value. Everyone should realize that when their interest rate is variable, that means it can change and you might pay much more. It’s a risk. You are rewarded for taking the risk by getting a lower initial rate. You might come out on top, you might lose. It’s a gamble. Except when the government shows up to bail you out when things go wrong. Some will say, “Well it doesn’t hurt you to help these people out.” Bull! It hurts me in two ways:

  1. First and foremost, it doesn’t fix the long term problem of stupid people buying something they can’t afford. Bitten once, shame on you, bitten twice shame on me. These people are still “bite free”. They won’t learn from this and are likely to do it again. Why not, there’s no risk if the government will bail you out.
  2. All of us as tax payers pay for it. The money comes from somewhere. As the article states, this bill costs $800 billion and pushes the deficit to 10.6 trillion. That means we just increased our debt by 8%. To bail out stupid people.

I chose not to take the risk. I paid a higher interest rate to get a 30 year fixed loan. I felt a little foolish when others got lower rates. But I now have an interest rate locked in for the next 25 years. Why did I do this? In part, because I had earlier gotten a 5/1 ARM mortgage that went up on me and I learned my lesson.

Don’t let the government make the American people stupider than they already are. Let your congressperson know that you don’t like this bill and would like to see less “nanny-state” policies and more “tough love”

 

Bush Apologizes … Finally

President Bush took the blame the day after the election for the Republicans losing the house majority. “I’m obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election and, as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility,” Bush said at a White House news conference on November 8th. He is willing to take responsibility for the political problems, but how about the problems with the war. It seems to me that Bush is sidestepping his responsibility in the problems that are going on with the war. In a bit of irony, Don Rumsfeld is stepping down as Defense Secretary because of the way things are going. I think that Rumsfeld made a lot of dumb moves in this war, but why isn’t the President willing to accept responsibility there as well. After all, he is the head of the armed forces as well as the head of the Republican party.

Now, I am not saying that he should resign, or that he needs to be impeached. We set a very dangerous precedent when we start impeaching presidents because we don’t agree with their decisions. That way leads to chaos and political instability and that benefits no one. All I’m asking for is an admission that the buck stops at the top and that whatever mistakes were made in Iraq are in part due to decisions made by Bush. Yes Rumsfeld should leave and should have left earlier. He bungled the preparation for this war and needs to bear responsibility for that. Bush has to accept that he took Rumsfeld’s advice when he shouldn’t have, but Bush has other jobs beyond national defense and removing him now causes ripples far beyond that of Rumsfeld leaving.

So, Mr. President: there is more the being president then playing political games. Take some responsibility for your other mistakes.

Nate Baxley