Missing The Straight Talk In McCain’s Housing Speech
Missing The Straight Talk In McCain’s Housing Speech
Our guest blogger is Andrew Jakabovics, Associate Director for the Economic Mobility Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
McCain’s much-hyped speech today on the nation’s current economic woes turned out to be much ado about nothing. His largely superficial descriptions of the nature and origins of the housing and credit crises demonstrate that McCain is a straight talker only when he says he knows nothing about economics.
His only proposal to address the current problems homeowners are facing is to get mortgage lenders to pledge to help cash-strapped, but credit-worthy, customers. He must have been out on the campaign trail last August when President Bush announced the Hope Now Alliance, which is a coalition of mortgage lenders and servicers that agreed to do just that. Unfortunately, the Hope Now Alliance’s track record is poor. Participants have not demonstrated the ability (or, some would argue, the willingness) to make widespread, substantive changes to mortgages that would result in sustainable payments for borrowers. McCain is pushing an ineffective policy six months late.
McCain claims he is open to new proposals that provide no bailouts to investors or speculators, but he made no mention of either Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) or Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) proposals to address the current crisis, which meet the universally accepted no bailout criterion. A true straight talker would acknowledge that there are serious legislative vehicles in Congress to address the current crisis and state his position on them either in his current role as Senator from the deeply impacted state of Arizona or in his aspiring role as president.
2 Responses to “Missing The Straight Talk In McCain’s Housing Speech”
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This is endemic of Republican/conservative politics. The corporate elite must be protected because they provide the ever dwindling crumbs on the floor upon which the rest of society must subsist. However, a conservative must show concern. Thus, the credit worthy peasants will be helped. Anyone else really deserves to go under and lose their homes because they were lazy riff-raff, speculators or other undeserving. Of course, those who were defrauded, misled, suddenly unemployed are also not credit worthy. Is it not nice that the same companies who preyed upon these people will also be the ones to determine whether they are worthy of mercy? GOOD JOB JOHNNY!
March 25th, 2008 at 7:30 pmActually, if you think about it, Social Security is a demographic impossibility going forward. Better to invest some of your money today, while you are young, and avoid the need for that which will not be there.
How would you fix SS? Increase taxes? It’s easy to blame the “corporate elite”, but if you mean the top 1% of taxpayers, they already pay nearly 40% of all Federal tax revenue. Hit them harder? Good luck with that one. As Theresa Kerry showed us, it is easy for them to avoid taxation, if they so desire.
Maybe you just need a decent index-fund 401K and the self-discipline to contribute to it each paycheck. Oh, and live within your means. Even a modest income earner can retire nicely if he or she simply invests regularly from early career onwards.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:34 pm