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A Little Help Down Here
Believe it or not, the Democratic Congress is actually getting help from Republicans in Congress and the White House to pass legislation that would help ordinary American homeowners keep their homes and avoid foreclosure. Strange, considering that Republicans have been fighting this exact kind of helping hand since January.
The contradiction was highlighted today in a New York Times article that detailed a Democratic bill in Congress to address housing and mortgage problems that has been blocked by Congressional Republicans until now.
“Republicans had blocked the measure in late February. Since then, the financial markets have experienced additional turmoil, including the near collapse of Bear Stearns and intervention by the Federal Reserve. That prompted a barrage of criticism from Democrats, who accused the Bush administration and Republicans of rushing to help Wall Street while ignoring Main Street. And lawmakers then went home for a two-week recess where many said they had gotten an earful from constituents on the housing problems.”
It’s great to see a bipartisan spirit in the capital, and I’m glad Republicans finally want to help the average American homeowner with their financial troubles in addition to their corporate friends at giant investment banks like Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase who need to be protected from dragging down the entire American economy if they collapse. But why did it have to take three months and an ear-full from their constituents for Republican lawmakers to realize that unless you help ordinary people keep their homes, millions of foreclosures will destroy the American economy just as well as a collapsed corporation can? Why did it take so long to understand that? Do conservatives really have to be scared by their constituents into doing the right thing?
The Democrats have been pushing for homeowner relief in Congress since this recession started, because they saw how quickly ordinary people’s lives were ruined by the recession. If there was a Democrat in the White House and more Democrats in Congress, we’d have fixed this problem three months ago. In November homeowners are going to remember who had to be scared into doing the right thing, and who fought for them from the beginning.
Posted By: Cole Hickman @ Apr 2, 12:44 PM
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