Obama: Congress "standing in the way" of housing recovery

(CBS News) Citing "reckless behavior in the housing market" as the biggest cause of the near-economic collapse that threw the nation into recession four years ago, President Obama in his weekly address urged Republicans in Congress to get on board with a bill that would help struggling homeowners refinance their mortgages.

"Four years ago this month, a crisis that started out on Wall Street almost brought down our entire economy," the president said. "The nation's biggest banks were days away from failing. The stock market and millions of American retirement accounts were in free-fall. Credit froze. Lending stopped. And businesses large and small didn't even know if they'd be able to make payroll. It was a moment the likes of which few Americans had ever seen."

Responsible homeowners, Mr. Obama said, were plagued by "the irresponsible actions of others," including lenders and buyers who were unrealistic about repayment options; speculators "looking to make a quick buck"; and banks "that packaged and sold those risky mortgages for phony profits." And "When the party stopped, and the housing bubble burst," Mr. Obama continued, "it pushed our entire economy into a historic recession - and left middle-class families holding the bag."

The housing market is "healing," the president said. "But we're not there yet."

While touting his administration's work with state attorneys general to investigate treatment of homeowners, and a settlement won from the nation's biggest banks "to help families stay in their homes," President Obama again chided Congress for adjourning before acting on a plan he sent to the Hill in February that would save responsible homeowners $3,000 a year on their mortgages by allowing them to refinance at lower rates. "It's a plan that has the support of independent, nonpartisan economists and leaders across the housing industry," he said. "But Republicans in Congress worked to keep it from even getting to a vote."

"The truth is, it's going to take a while for our housing market to fully recover," the president said. "But it's going to take a lot more time - and cause a lot more hurt - if Congress keeps standing in the way."

Trying to make the case that President Obama "puts government first" and isn't interested in streamlining job creation for the middle class, Republican Congressional candidate for Arizona Vernon Parker in the weekly GOP response argued that the underlying problem with the country's ongoing economic turmoil is that "government won't get out of the way" of "employers who want to hire and workers who want to work."

Parker said his own personal history, growing up in "an underprivileged neighborhood replete with gangs, guns, and violence," rendered him singularly qualified to understand what it takes for Americans to be able to realize their American Dream and move securely into the middle class. The president's Affordable Care Act, he said, complicates businesses' abilities to expand and hire, and the U.S. corporate tax rate "pushes jobs away" to competitors.

"I agree with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan that we need to stop all the looming tax hikes and develop a pro-growth tax code that brings jobs home and keeps jobs here," Parker said. "But President Obama? He puts government first. He actually wants to raise taxes on small businesses. He wants to keep our own energy resources under lock and key, including the Keystone XL pipeline. He wants more red tape, more spending that puts us more in debt to China, more of the same. No wonder Americans are asking, 'Where are the jobs?' No wonder jobs are fleeing overseas.

"Let's bring those jobs home, back to America, back to local small businesses."

[Granscole]

Romney said government does't not create jobs. Now Obama has to create jobs for the right wing to see? Is it? Obama has a jobs bill languishing n congress. GOP has refused to sign it through even though the bill is fully paid for. He is stopping the wars that has bleed the country's resources and expanded the deficits, the GOP wants to start a news war with Iran. He tried to let the Bush tax cut expire - the GOP shouted and some rubbish democrats. He has just created the Obama care so that more people will be insured and thus reduce care cost - Romney, the tea party and the far rights will quash it on day one when Romney takes office... and many more. But besides that, Obama has tried to reduce unemployment, increase American industrial production with increased exports, Check China though Romney and Donald Trump produce their goods sold in America in China. Obama has expand energy production through drilling and clean energy, worked hard to improve American education which has fallen behind so many countries. Now the deficit is falling, GDP rising, house prices rising ...so taking about what Mr. Obama has done for the past 4 years - these are facts.

[tsigili]

Obama simply wants to squander more tax dollars, with more senseless spending, which those who work in the industry have already said, will NOT make any difference.

This simply has to hit bottom, before it gets better. Period.

More government spending on housing, will simply squander money for NO BENEFIT!

Congress knows that.......Obama has failed to get the memo!

[hypnotoad72]

It is a shame work keeps getting devalued...

People are failing, but it's due to external influences beyond their ability to control.

Indeed, when people say "let businesses fail", they don't go into context or reasoning. Anyone looking at the ambient surroundings would find context that would take the politician or other fool saying such verbiage and put them in their place...

[MonkeyTree1]

OBAMA MUST GO

Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

Cooks working for the Bureau of Prisons make an average of $66,225 a year.

During 2010, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.

During 2010, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.

According to the Heritage Foundation, federal workers on average make 30 to 40 percent more money than their counterparts in the private sector.

The U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more back in 2005. When Barack Obama became president, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or
more. By June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.

If you are a federal worker, you are 13 times more likely to die of natural causes than you are to get laid off by the federal government.

Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.

VOTE FOR ROMNEY

[dj_chi]

Didn't someone already note last time you posted this that your facts aren't facts. And that Congress controls the purse strings so if you want to complain about salaries then get Congress to cut the money.

Yeah, I bet you'll ignore correcting anything you posted and just keep reposting it as is. "We're not gonna let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Yeah. You're another of those posters who don't care about facts.

[hypnotoad72]

So Romney will devalue even more work?

In case you hadn't noticed, people losing jobs and with stagnating wages for those who have are why our economy is faltering...

Here are some reminders for you:



http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Rick_Santorum.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/john_mccain.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/mitch_mcconnell.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/jim_demint.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Orrin_Hatch.htm#Corporations
http://www.issues2000.org/senate/Judd_Gregg.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/john_cornyn.htm#Corporations

"Voted NO on repealing tax subsidy for companies which move US jobs offshore. (Mar 2005)"

Now, read that - giving taxpayer money to corporations that offshore (to communist countries). This means people in America are out of work as we're shipping jobs overseas. This also means we create a revenue problem because there are fewer working people to tax.

Obama voted 'YES' to repeal the anti-free market corporate handout issue...

And some related issues:

http://www.realitybase.org/journal/2009/3/10/the-american-dream-died-in-february-1973.html
http://www.exponentialimprovement.com/cms/offshoresubsidies.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=4
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/01/vicious-cycle-stagnant-wages
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/opinion/krugman-ignorance-is-strength.html?src=me&ref=general
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/opinions/x13292164/COLUMN-American-workers-got-what-they-deserved
http://underthemountainbunker.com/2011/03/31/senator-bernie-sanders-guide-to-corporate-freeloaders/
http://www.ctj.org/html/layoffs.htm
http://www.truth-out.org/top-us-corporations-outsourced-more-24-million-american-jobs-over-last-decade/1303196400
http://www.ctj.org/html/corp0402.htm
http://www.sociology.vt.edu/course/socprobs/corporatewelfare.html
http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/05/02/undercover-boss-season-finale/
http://front.moveon.org/what-if-everyone-understood-today-what-roseanne-understood-then
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/14/158424/republican-leaders-debt-limit-hypocrisy/
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/career/supervisor-wants-employee-to-quit-part-time-job/2902
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/hiring-illegal-immigrants.html
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6283
http://ecosalon.com/squawk-our-tax-dollars-help-mcdonalds-hawk-chicken-in-europe/
http://drich13.newsvine.com/_news/2011/03/20/6307764-study-governor-walkers-budget-will-cut-21843-jobs-could-actually-hurt-state-economy
http://www.progress.org/cwfedex.htm
?http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/why-us-it-jobs-arent-coming-back-465?source=fssr
http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/beware-the-plot-increase-the-h-1b-visa-program-269
http://hubpages.com/hub/HowH1BVisaFRAUDiskillingAmerica?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9133529/U.S._H_1B_workers_outnumber_unemployed_techies
http://www.ourfuture.org/corporate-welfare
http://mydd.com/story/2007/2/7/184312/5388
http://acsa.net/press/savearticlegates.htm
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/03/ronald-reagan-where-free-unions-and-collective-bargaining-are-forbidden-freedom-is-lost/
http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/28/news/economy/paycuts/index.htm
http://greatdivide.typepad.com/across_the_great_divide/2009/06/walmart-workers-on-welfare-lets-look-for-the-spin.html
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3045walmart_iowa.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-to-grassley-were-still-using-h-1bs-no-moral-imperative-to-hire-americans-2009-3
http://www.google.com/search?q=americans+train+replacements+H1B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M
http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/11/greedy-american-union-auto-workers-and.html
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/25/unpaid-jobs-the-new-normal/
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/8707878/article-Growing-up-in-Boehner-s-America
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/jul/01/usa-republicans-john-boehners-childhood


Now if you can't understand that, that's your problem. I'm tired of producing facts for you to not be bothered with since you are the lazy leeches.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Romney/Ryan and their fellow republicans CANNOT TELL THE TRUTH about what they want to do. Because they know voters would soundly reject them. Think about it. In 2010 republicans campaigned for congress on creating jobs. But what did they do after gaining control of the house? They began the war on women, they cause America's credit rating to be downgraded, they refused to extend unemployment benefits, they refused to allow a voted on President Obama's job act.

They have created unnecessary voter I.D. laws at the state level to suppress the vote of likely Democratic voters. I could go on and on with numeous examples of how republicans have used they public office to benefit corporations, big oil, big pharma and the super rick over struggling Americans.

Bottom line republicans have shown they are incapable and unworthy of holding public office. Now it's up to voters to vote against them like they have voted against us.

[dj_chi]

WMSshields. Obama isn't a government of one. He needs Congress to send him bills to sign. No bills, no reduced deficit. I never cease to be amazed at how the right doesn't understand how government works. Or maybe they do and are glad Boehner, McConnell and company did their best to uphold their pledge to do anything to make this president a 1-termer. Party before country is no way to move us all forward.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

You might have a point if republicans had not vowed to sabotage everything President Obama tried to revive the economy and help struggling Americans.

Republicans have shown they place allegiance to Grover Norquist and party over the love of country. Thereby proving they are undeserving of holding public office and shaping public policy.

[CaptainSmollett]

Just more finger-pointing to deflect blame and responsibility.
The man refuses to accept that he's had anything to do with the mess. Well, just what have you been doing for the past 4 years, Mr. Obama?

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Care to discuss the role unyielding, deliberate sabotaging obstruction by the treasonous insurgent republicans has played in the rate of economic progress?

[qyeteye]

Vote out coup-by-filibuster pathological obstructionist Congress.

Otherwise get the resulting grid-lock you vote for that continues to block then blame the President.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Romney, Ryan and his fellow republicans think Americans are so stupid they can't see thru their propaganda.

[Lucky12345678]

Why doesn't President Obama call on Congress to reduce the national debt!

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

The problem with that is republicans would reduce the debt on the backs of those least able to afford to pay more while blocking efforts to make the super rich pay more.

[genesis667]

Typical liberal morons posting here I see...You dolts are too stupid for your own good, the country is entering into another recession, right now, Obamas failed policies own it all, he hasn't been able to produce jobs, he's a failure, a vote for Obama is to support failure. I don't support failure, My vote will be for someone that's a tad more qualified than a community organizer!

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

You must be a rich person voting for the people (Romney, Ryan) who have vowed to protect your tax cuts and other interest at the expense of struggling Americans.

[qyeteye]

If you are not stupid then you will vote for a Congress that represents the peoples interests - for a change.