Sunday, March 28, 2010

There really is nothing new under the sun

A couple of days ago we blogged about the displeasure D.C. pols have exhibited towards what they perceive as an under-achieving HAMP (Home Affordable Mortgage Program) program.

Alas, and as predicted, statists will never recognize the failure of a government program and, as such, rather than scaling back or shutting down HAMP they are going to throw more money at it.

The Obama administration on Friday will announce broad new initiatives to help troubled homeowners, potentially refinancing several million of them into fresh government-backed mortgages with lower payments.

Another element of the new program is meant to temporarily reduce the payments of borrowers who are unemployed and seeking a job. Additionally, the government will encourage lenders to write down the value of loans held by borrowers in modification programs.

The escalation in aid comes as the administration is under rising pressure from Congress to resolve the foreclosure crisis, which is straining the economy and putting millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes. But the new initiatives could well spur protests among those who have kept up their payments and are not in trouble.

Protests like the one that will go down in November of this year, to be precise.

If we sound like a broken record it's only because we're being cued by the actions of the Obama administration.

Re-read those paragraphs above from the NYT article and tell us they could not have just as easily appeared in print back in July '09, Nov. '09, or Jan. '10.

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