Pay My Mortgage
Money, politics, Government, Laws Gone Too Far
Hillary Clinton wants you to pay my mortgage.
Well, okay, not my mortgage specifically. I don’t qualify for her proposed $1-billion taxpayer bailout of homeowners in default of their mortgage. Mainly because I am not in default of my mortgage. I read the fine print on my mortgage contract. And I made sure I could afford the monthly payments by choosing a mortgage product that fit within my budget.
But a lot of homeowners didn’t take such precautions. So the 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate front-runner wants you to go to work and turn over your income to people too busy to pull out a calculator.
Yes, that’s right: if you got suckered into purchasing more house than you could afford, or signed on to a mortgage that had an adjustable interest rate, or tried to bridge the mortgage from your unsold property to the purchase of a new house, or have a big balloon payment coming due that you just can’t squeeze into your spending plans, then Hillary Clinton is willing to take money out of some other poor hardworking person’s pocket to cover your bad business move… uh, I mean your unforeseen misfortune.
Ironically, as Mrs. Clinton was proposing her $1-billion shifting of income, Bloomberg News was reporting that the number of mortgage applications were on the rise, quote - “as cheaper borrowing costs encouraged more Americans to seek loans for home purchases and refinancing.”
Well of course mortgages are becoming cheaper! The Democrats are willing to have somebody else pay your mortgage for you!
But let’s look deeper into the matter…
Is Hillary Clinton really looking to bail out the poor defenseless bad-at-math homeowner? Or is she really looking to bail out the mortgage companies, those bastions of big business who are more than willing to help Americans get into massive debt, who are finding themselves suddenly afloat in a sea of their own bad debt??
I’m all for home ownership… Responsible home ownership. This past year, my wife and I wanted to sell our place and purchase a home closer to our families. However, the rapidly glutting home market (and two buyer-defaulted contracts) kept our place on the market. And despite a mortgage broker’s enticing offer of a fancy mortgage product that would haver saddled us with a heap of budget-busting payments, we heeded the advice of friends and did not purchase a second debt before our first one was sold.
Unlike this particular couple who seem perfectly willing to take on massive debt they may not be able to pay. And why shouldn’t they? After all, Hillary is willing to have you and me cover their costs. Ironically, the mortgage company wasn’t so willing to bank on a taxpayer bailout.
Who would have thought it… a mortgage company actually saved us some money!
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TheWriteJerry @ August 9, 2007
I don’t know about this proposal, but I do know that a lot of things came together to make this situation what it is. It wasn’t just an unforseen wave of people, like being under a magic spell, came out and bought too much house for themselves. Therefore, I don’t think this situation can be solved by telling these homeowners who were convinced by “people that know more about it than they do” that they, too, can have the American dream - to go and screw themselves because they are stupid and get what they deserve. That just doesn’t seem too . . . Christian, I don’t know. (Personal NOTE: I have never missed or have been late for a payment). That beiing said, I am not familiar with Clinton’s proposal. I may be against it, but it won’t be for economic darwinism reasons.
I hope that didn’t sound too harsh. I still love ya and respect your opinions!
I understand, Jeff, how what I wrote might be interpreted as an attack on home owners caught in difficult financial circumstances… and in a way it is.
I’m not talking about the homeowner who suffers a job layoff or a divorce or an illness that causes their budget to go out of balance. I’m talking about those buyers who went with the “low money down” adjustable mortgages, or the fancy products like no-down with balloon payments (and other varieties thereof). Those people gambled, hoping that the system would work for them and not against them. They took a calculated (or forgot to calculate the) risk. I do not think we should shift income via taxes from the non-risk takers - or successful risk takers - to those who played the game and lost.
If I go into a casino and plunk down my cash on the craps table and the dice go against me, the other players should not be forced by the casino operators to cover my losses.
Yeah, I get what you are saying and I am tempted to agree with you. I, like you, have been responsible with my housing situation. I am paying TWO mortgages (still trying to sell a house), but still haven’t missed or been late for a payment. I, in a looking out for #1 sort of way, would not want to pay for the mistakes of others, either.
However, some of these people were convinced that they could handle their mortgages by brokers eager to make a sale. Typically, these are first time home buyers who didn’t believe they would EVER be able to own their own home. They bought into the scheme of these brokers out of naivete and they preyed on their intense desire to share in the American dream. I am not sure these people believed they were gambling. Plus, most of these people have little kids who are going to suffer from all this.
Still, there are others that should have known better, I understand. I just don’t want to be hard-hearted to everyone in that position just to prevent the small percentage of fool-hardy people from getting over.
It is the same thing as welfare. I don’t want to deprive a lot of helpless mothers and children for hard times in their lives, just to insure that the small percentage of scammers don’t get paid. I want to take care of the poor. If someone can get past all the safeguards from fraud, that is between them and God. All I know is that I want to do what I can for those who really need the help.
Good discussion!