Mark Winston Griffith
Obama’s Fiscal Agenda Less than Prime
First, a moment of silence for the death of John Edwards' message of fighting poverty and going toe-to-toe with corporate thievery.
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Thank you. Now back to the candidates still in the race.
Part investigative journalism, part political hit, the Nation's February 11th edition accuses candidate Barack Obama of pursuing a retrogressive subprime mortgage recovery policy. The Nation's main charge is that Obama seems to have bought into the narrative that unscrupulous borrowers, rather than lenders, are a big part of what is driving the foreclosure and subprime mortgage crises:
"Obama's foreclosure plan mostly avoids direct government spending in favor of a tax credit for homeowners, which amounts to about $500 on average, beyond which only certain borrowers would be eligible for help from an additional fund...'One advantage to the tax credit is that there’s no moral hazard involved,' one of Obama's economic advisers explains. 'There's no sense in which you’re rewarding someone for taking too big a risk. If you lied about your income in order to get a bigger mortgage, then you're not qualified. Do you really want to give a subsidy to the guy who wasn't prudent?' Obama has used similar language on the campaign trail. 'Innocent homeowners,' he has promised, those 'responsible' borrowers' facing foreclosure through no fault of their own,' would get help restructuring their loans. But no such luck for those 'claiming income they didn't have' or 'lying to get mortgages.' "
Others have noted before that Obama and his fiscal policies have endeared him to the Wall Street crowd, and the
Say it ain't so, Barack!
Obama's fiscal and domestic agendas are poised to let the market "solve" economic inequalities. So this is what "change" looks like?
Mark Winston Griffith: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 7:46 AM, Feb 01, 2008 in
Economic Opportunity
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