Obama Unveils $75B Mortgage Relief Plan

Initiative Aims To Help Borrowers Refinance And Prevent Millions Of Americans From Losing Their Homes

(CBS/ AP)  Seeking to tackle "a crisis unlike any we've ever known," President Barack Obama unveiled an ambitious $75 billion plan Wednesday to keep as many as 9 million Americans from losing their homes to foreclosure.

Announcing the plan in Arizona - a state especially hard hit by the housing crunch - Mr. Obama said that turning around the battered economy requires stemming the continuing tide of foreclosures. The housing crisis that began last year set many other factors in motion and helped lead to the current, widening recession.

"In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis," Mr. Obama said at a high school outside Phoenix. "And all of us will pay an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to deepen."

But while talking in broad strokes about the importance of the issue to the economy as a whole, the president took care not to miss the pain that the housing problems are causing in individual families

"The American Dream is being tested by a home mortgage crisis that not only threatens the stability of our economy but also the stability of families and neighborhoods," he said. "While this crisis is vast, it begins just one house and one family at a time."

More expensive than expected, Mr. Obama's plan aims to keep between 7 million and 9 million people from foreclosure. Of the nearly 52 million U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, about 13.8 million, or nearly 27 percent, owe more on their mortgage than their house is now worth, according to Moody's Economy.com.

Headlining Mr. Obama's plan is a $75 billion Homeowner Stability Initiative, which would provide a set of incentives to mortgage lenders in an effort to convince them to help up to 4 million borrowers on the verge of foreclosure. The goal: cut monthly mortgage payments to sustainable levels, defined as no more than 31 percent of a homeowners income. Funding would come from the $700 billion financial industry bailout passed by Congress last fall.

Another key component would specifically help those said to be "under water" - with dwellings whose market value have sunk below the principal still owed on the mortgages. Such mortgages have traditionally been almost impossible to refinance. But the White House said its program will help 4 million to 5 million families do just that - if their mortgages are owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

The White House says a typical homeowner with a $200,000 dollar mortgage would save about $2,300 a year, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.

Some analysts say the plan will work only if the president's jobs plan works first.

"You can modify all the loans you want, you can try to refinance loans, but if you don't have money coming in through your pay, sort of weekly paycheck, you can't pay anything," said Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Analysts say Mr. Obama's plan will help many borrowers stay in their homes - but economist Mark Zandi told CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason that he estimates that nearly 4 million foreclosed homes will be sold over the next three years.

"The housing downturn, the mortgage crisis is only intensifying," Zandi said. "And I think even with this plan it'll get worse."

---

Graphic: Breakdown Of How Stimulus Package Funds Will Be Dispersed
Obama's Remarks At The Signing Ceremony
Hotsheet: State-By-State Infrastructure Spending
Mark Knoller: Stimulus Bill Too Lengthy to Read - But Not To Sign
Hotsheet: Jindal Signals La. May Not Take Stimulus Money

---

Almost immediately after Mr. Obama unveiled his initiative, lawmakers jumped to criticize a plan they say is ripe for fraud, reports CBS News producer Laura Strickler.

House Republican leadership and Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent letters to administration officials asking for assurances that anti-fraud measures will be put in place to guarantee that taxpayer dollars are not used to re-do mortgages that were originally based on fraudulent documentation. Grassley notes that experts in mortgage lending say that anywhere from 30-70 percent of all mortgages inked in the last few years were based on fraudulent claims of assets or income.

Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan stressed that homeowners don't need to be delinquent in order to get help.

"This is necessary policy. It's smart economics. And it's just and fair," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters.

Asked why the cost had jumped to $75 billion from initial talk of a $50 billion effort, Geithner said, "We think that's necessary to make a program like this work."

And he said relief would be almost instantaneous, basically as soon as rules are published March 4. "You'll start to see the effects quite quickly", Geithner said.

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said previous efforts had largely flopped. "We've not attacked the problem at the core," she told reporters. "We are woefully behind the curve."

The biggest players in the mortgage industry already had halted foreclosures pending Mr. Obama's announcement.

"The plan I'm announcing focuses on rescuing families who have played by the rules and acted responsibly," Mr. Obama said. "It will not rescue the unscrupulous or irresponsible by throwing good taxpayer money after bad loans."

He issued a warning as well: "All of us must learn to live within our means again."

He said the plan will not help those who took risky bets by buying homes to sell them, not live in them, or dishonest lenders who distorted facts for naive buyers, or buyers who signed on for loans they knew they could not afford.

"This plan will not save every home," Mr. Obama said.

In tandem with the foreclosure plan, the Treasury Department announced it would double the size of its lifeline to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, seeking to bolster confidence in the mortgage giants effectively taken over by the government last fall. The government said it would absorb up to $200 billion in losses at each company, by using money Congress set aside last year, and will continue purchasing mortgage-backed securities from them.

The Treasury said the increased support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn't reflect projected losses at the two companies. The two companies are currently projected to need a combined government subsidy of about $66 billion, well short of the new promise of up to $400 billion.

Asked about the doubling of the guarantees for Fannie and Freddie, Geithner said: "This is not a judgment about the expected losses ahead. It underscores commitment, and that is very important to help keep mortgage rates low." Geithner said most not all of the money would come the financial bailout fund.

The president's announcement came a day after he signed into law a $787 billion economic stimulus plan he hopes will spark an economic turnaround and create or save 3.5 million jobs.

At the same time, the administration was grappling with the darkening prospects for the U.S. auto industry.

Even as Detroit carmakers submitted restructuring plans to qualify for continued government loans, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC asked for another $14 billion in bailout cash.

[CraigBerkeley]

Here in Reno, Nevada Judge Brent Adams has a foreclosure according to the Washoe County, Nevada public records. The Mortgage Fraudsters certainly do not deserve a bail-out! Incredible deals in foreclosures for investors? I don't think so. There's blood on the banks hands from their three million illegal foreclosures and counting!!

Is Your Lender A Patriot Or Terrorist?
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3462

Beware Of Fraudulent Foreclosure Notices
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3825

Many of these Notices of Default are not real, they are fraudulent and they are just another way to steal houses. Then the fraudster ?sells? the stolen house under a fraudulent Trustee?s Deed.

Rachel And Her Children: Homeless Families In America @ http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3206

The illegal three million foreclosures have also added to the homeless despair.

illegal Is Your Lender A Patriot Or Terrorist?
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3462

Just Do The Required Home Loan Modification
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=4070

Beware Of Fraudulent Foreclosure Notices. Many of these Notices of Default are not real, they are fraudulent and they are just another way to steal houses. Then the fraudster ?sells? the stolen house under a fraudulent Trustee?s Deed. http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3825

Reno, Nevada?s Countrywide Home Loans manager Sue Barry should also be charged with Mortgage Fraud, along with Prudential Nevada Realty former Regional Manager Valerie Mapes, former Prudential Nevada Realty Realtor Keith W. Gledhill, Mortgage Fraudster Reno landlords John and Kay Sickler, Mortgage Fraudster Reno escrow officer Jenna Kay Clark and her company Reno?s First American Title, Reno Realtor Allan Zane and his Broker Magi Bird, and Reno?s First American Title.
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3415
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3300
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3320
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3351
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3372
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3377
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3397
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3404
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3421
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3430
http://reno.broowaha.com/article.php?id=3448

For copies of the supporting documents that have been uploaded, see http://renomortgagefraudexposes.ning.com/

SAVE OUR ECONOMY!!!
http://www.saveoureconomy.com/

[valhalla14]

I used to have respect for the left, even though I dislike every standard they have. That being said, any intellegent economist will tell you, you DO NOT spend money to get out of debt, you cut costs. Well, how are we going to solve any problems with Barry Husseins Idea?....I'll wait for an answer from a member of the United States Socialist party...I'm waiting..

[mavnomore]

CaribouBarbi

Limbough economists = Rush-skies

[mavnomore]

Cheney and the Goat Devil

By MAUREEN DOWD

I was dubious about Will Ferrell doing his Bush impersonation one more time on Broadway.

As we lurch through the disasters bequeathed by W. %u2014 the economy tanking, 17,000 more troops going to Afghanistan, Chrysler pleading for a total of $9 billion %u2014 would audiences still laugh at Ferrell%u2019s lovable fool of a president?

I was wrong. The audience for the Sunday matinee of %u201CYou%u2019re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush%u201D howled in delight.

I asked Adam McKay, the former head writer of %u201CSaturday Night Live%u201D who directed and co-wrote the show with Ferrell, why people respond this way to one of the worst presidents ever.

%u201CHe%u2019s so clearly a neglected 13-year-old that there%u2019s something really kind of heartbreaking about him,%u201D McKay said, calling him %u201Ca good-time Charlie%u201D who was %u201Cjust used his whole life to front questionable business endeavors, and in a way that%u2019s what his presidency was.

cont

[mavnomore]

cont

%u201CHe doesn%u2019t have Cheney%u2019s cartoonish need for power and greed that%u2019s so off the charts you don%u2019t even understand how Cheney got that way. W. may have some awareness, deep down inside, sort of like a petulant teenager who just flunked the trig quiz and knows he screwed up. I think Cheney not only knows but is delighted with everything he did, as is Rumsfeld.%u201D

In the show, the former president dismisses waterboarding as a spa treatment at Bliss, and reveals that he did walk in on Cheney once in the basement of the White House locked in the amorous arms of a giant goat devil in a room full of pentagrams.

%u201CHe looked at me with solid silver glowing orb-like eyes, and his breath had a strong ammonia scent to it,%u201D Ferrell%u2019s W. said. %u201CAnd he told me in a language that I knew in my heart hadn%u2019t been spoken in a thousand years %u2018Pariff Go Lanerff!%u2019 And I just ran.%u201D

One of the great mysteries of the Bush presidency is whether W. ever had an epiphany when he realized that he had been manipulated by *** Cheney, whether it ever hit him that he had trusted the wrong father figure.

There were clues in the last couple of years that W. and Condi were trying to sidle away from Cheney by using the forbidden strategy of diplomacy in dealing with Iran and North Korea, and by cutting loose Rummy.

cont

[mavnomore]

cont

As one official who worked closely with both W. and Cheney told The New York Daily News%u2019s Tom DeFrank the last week of the administration: %u201CIt%u2019s been a long, long time since I%u2019ve heard the president say, %u2018Run that by the vice president%u2019s office.%u2019 You used to hear that all the time.%u201D

The clearest sign of disaffection we have is Bush%u2019s refusal to pardon Scooter Libby, the man known as %u201CCheney%u2019s Cheney,%u201D despite Vice%u2019s tense and emotional pleading. It was his final, too little, too late %u201CYou are not the boss of me%u201D spurning of *** Cheney.

It may seem pointless for W. to worry about his legacy at this juncture, but he clearly did not want to add a Marc Rich blot to all the other gigantic blots on the copybook.

As DeFrank reported in The Daily News, Cheney conducted a full-bore, last-ditch campaign to persuade W. to pardon Libby, peppering the reluctant president with visits and phone calls, and was furious when W. would not relent.

After so many years of getting W. to do so much of what he wanted, by giving the insecure president the illusion of deference and a lack of personal ambition, it must have been infuriating to Cheney to have W. turn a deaf ear.

cont

[mavnomore]

cont

Cheney, uncharacteristically critical of W., told The Weekly Standard last month: %u201CI disagree with President Bush%u2019s decision.%u201D Other Libby sympathizers put it more bluntly in the conservative magazine, calling Bush %u201Cdishonorable%u201D and saying that his action was akin to leaving a soldier on the battlefield.

Alan Simpson, the former conservative Wyoming senator who is close to Cheney, told Jo Becker and Jim Rutenberg of The Times that the decision had left the former vice president %u201Churt and deeply disappointed,%u201D but he is not the type to stay bitter. (With Cheney contemplating writing a book, publishers and historians can only hope otherwise.)

By not pardoning Cheney%u2019s alter ego, who plied his dark arts trying to discredit Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson and then lied to protect his boss, W. was clearly saying he thought that Libby, and by extension Cheney, did something wrong.

But it%u2019s not clear whether W. is simply pouting because Cheney%u2019s machinations blackened his legacy, or if, at long last, he fathoms the morality of it, that Cheney did hideous things to the Constitution %u2014 not to mention that goat devil.

[cariboubarbi]

Any of you wingnut, Limbough economists care to guess what would happen if we let another 9 million homes slip into bankruptcy?


Anyone?


Helloooo?

[mbskoczen]

Billionaire Paul Allen is a Microsoft co-ounder, the owner of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and the owner of the NBA's Portland Trailblazers.

And, thanks to the stimulus bill President Obama signed this week, he's also about to be as much as a billion dollars richer.

Wow Obama is giving our money to the super rich... Paul Allen is a noted Lib and this is Obama way of paying him back..

Obama we got suckered...

[mbskoczen]

Wow I got screwed again.

My taxes will go down only 7 dollars per week.. I know I heard Obama say I would save $1,000's under his plan, and now we know he lied about that.

He was going to start to pull troops out of Iraq immediately from the first day he took office.. Lied about that too.

Now might I get a break on my home payments. No way we're only give it to the group that bought more house then they could afford and now I'm going to pay for that mistake plus my own house payment.

Obama = Jimmy Carter 2...
ONly worse

[shazmigangs]

Posted by ShazmiGangs at 08:09 PM : Feb 18, 2009

Actually, you would be wrong. This is the first I have seen you today. You have a million other people reporting you. I just need to sit back and watch them alllllll disappear.:)

Who do you think would get the most votes for being a loser? YOU or me?

I''''m not the one spewing the same repulsive cr*p over and over again.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by erasmus606 at 08:15 PM : Feb 18, 2009
+ report abuse


Hahahahahaha you like to watch don''t you .A.Look who is talking about posting crapp ...we had you one time posting dracula exotica did''nt we mommy carpenator...I am so glad that its was not you your post is very civilized and needs total respect ...so how was the big valentino day for mommy erasmoos did you had fun chubby cheeks....Okay sometime we do get carried away so we have little fun sometimes whats wrong with that mommy ....Relax and enjoy the short life we all have .....

[erasmus606]

I know you were the one complaining like a real loser...aern''''t you maggotty..erasmoos

Posted by ShazmiGangs at 08:09 PM : Feb 18, 2009

Actually, you would be wrong. This is the first I have seen you today. You have a million other people reporting you. I just need to sit back and watch them alllllll disappear.:)

Who do you think would get the most votes for being a loser? YOU or me?

I''m not the one spewing the same repulsive cr*p over and over again.

[ti_3vom]

I''m invisible.

[shazmigangs]

Are the censors taking the day off or something???

Posted by rm090213 at 06:51 PM : Feb 18, 2009

I think they get off at 6:00.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by erasmus606 at 07:17 PM : Feb 18, 2009
+ report abuse


mommy ugly is trolling again ...stop following me stupid oldie...I know you were the one complaining like a real loser...aern''t you maggotty..erasmoos

[ti_3vom]

Christianity teaches that you have free will but if you don''''t do things God''''s way, you will burn for eternity in hell. Nice guy God is.

Posted by Jedi_Jesus at 08:02 PM : Feb 18, 2009


Not right.

[jedi_jesus]

Christianity teaches us that we have the power of choice. God gave us free will.
The government teaches us that they make the choice for us

Posted by willnotyield at 06:57 PM


Freedom of will is an illusion. All we are is biological machines.

[jedi_jesus]

Any more of you wingnuts and Limbough economists care to guess what would happen if we allowed 9 million more homes to slide into forclosure?

Hmmmmmm?

Anyone?

lol!

Posted by CaribouBarbi at 07:30 PM : Feb 18, 2009

There would be 9 million less irresponsible Americans to spend more than they earn.

Posted by ObamaChavez at 07:36 PM : Feb 18, 2009


Hah! Those are innocent victims of Bush era incompetence and malfeasance.

[jedi_jesus]

Christianity teaches us that we have the power of choice. God gave us free will.
The government teaches us that they make the choice for us

Posted by willnotyield at 06:57 PM : Feb 18, 2009


Christianity teaches that you have free will but if you don''t do things God''s way, you will burn for eternity in hell. Nice guy God is.

[news2me63]

There would be 9 million less irresponsible Americans to spend more than they earn.

Posted by ObamaChavez
________
A simpelton response to a very complex issue.

[ti_3vom]

There would be 9 million less irresponsible Americans to spend more than they earn.

Posted by ObamaChavez at 07:36 PM : Feb 18, 2009


You like demeaning others, eh? Typical low intelligence response.