At least 1 in 5 homeowners underwater

Knowledge is power and that is why there was very little reporting done by the Republican-owned media, that it was George Bush who pushed for minority home buying.... not Clinton as they love to distort about, and gave Speculators the go ahead to get minorities to buy homes in the hundreds of thousands.

Bush - "Calling a home the "foundation for families and a source of stability for communities," President Bush proposed three new initiatives designed to enhance existing federal home buyer assistance programs by helping African- and Hispanic-Americans buy homes. According to the White House, fewer than half of all African and Hispanic Americans currently own their homes, compared to nearly three-fourths of white Americans. "We must begin to close this homeownership gap by dismantling the barriers that prevent minorities from owning a piece of the American dream," said the President in a nationwide radio address. To close the homeownership gap, President Bush proposed legislation funding the following new initiatives:

American Dream Down Payment Fund
This program would provide money to qualified low-income families to assist in making the down payment on a home. "The single greatest hurdle to first time homeownership is a high down payment requirement that can put a home out of reach," said President Bush. White House analysts estimate that the American Dream Fund will assist some 40,000 low-income families annually in making down payments on homes.

Tax Credits to Create Affordable Housing
This proposed initiative would provide home-builders and developers with nearly $2.4 billion in tax credits for building affordable single-family housing in distressed areas. The tax credits would help make 200,000 new affordable homes available to low-income buyers over the next five years.

Home Buyer Education
To assist home buyers deal with the complexity and difficulty of the purchasing process, this program would provide funds to agencies working to better educated first-time home buyers. Consumers would be advised of their rights and responsibilities as home buyers, and trained to recognize and avoid abusive and unscrupulous lending practices. "Financial education and housing counseling can help protect home buyers against abuses, greatly improve the loan terms they are offered, and help families get through tough times with their homes intact," said President Bush "Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream," Bush said. "My approach to broadening home ownership focuses on empowering people to help themselves and to help one another." Source: Dateline: 06/18/02

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa061902a.htm

And because there were no Regulations to protect said homebuyers who had a balloon interest at the end, well we see what has happened, and they still want to blame the homebuyers instead of the scam perpetrated by lenders who first lowered interest rates to put people into homes then raised their interest rates so they could no longer afford their homes. Someone should go to jail for this!

1 in 5.......holy cow that's a lot of minorities out there. Not bad for a people who make up 12% of the population. Please Rush, tell us how to rid the evil albatross from our necks. Tell us how the republican party loves people, well most people, well ourselves anyway.

Ronnie was the one who eliminated the interest deduction on credit card interest for Joe Sixpack and screwed him in other ways.

Yes, that nice widow down the street was talked into "tapping the equity" in her house and is now out on the street.

Welcome to Bushville. Over in Hoover County, USA.

Just thank your stars Bush's "ownership society" ploy stalled during takeoff and he didn't get to "privatize" Social Security.

While you're thanking your stars, thank the voters for voting the freemarketing Replicans out of office for, one hopes, a good long time.

20 years at least.

1 in 5.......holy cow that's a lot of minorities out there. Not bad for a people who make up 12% of the population. Please Rush, tell us how to rid the evil albatross from our necks. Tell us how the republican party loves people, well most people, well ourselves anyway.

Posted by: bill r. | March 4, 2009 8:41 AM

Your race baiting arguments are really getting old. and in this case are completely off base. If you want to be critical of any political parties track record with minorities you really should look closer at the DEM party chronic enabling of the lack of personal responsibility with massive social engineering programs like the LBJ war on poverty...these programs have created a cycle of government dependency, devalued the role of a father in the home and have created generational cycles of poverty that have had devastating effects on minority - particularly african american- communities.
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This is a market indicator of the devaluation of home values compared to loan value not the much smaller group ( less than 1:10) of people who are not meeting mortgage pmts or the even smaller group of those who aren't making pmts because they are in home they should never have beein in in the first place.

You really want to drag the conversation down to a racial issue whenever their is any conversation about the fact that there are irresponsible borrowers out there...what a discrimanatory point of view.

heartburn.......Oh...My mistake. I only thought that when most of the posts from the right blame the minorities, that made it a race issue. Of course the republicans have done more for race relations. Just think of the Willie Horton issue and how much that helped, or Ronnie Raygun calling them welfare queens. You are very good at pointing out the amount of money spent for programs, but very little on how the party would handle it (no surprise here). What I find funny, is that McCain and Gramm and many republicans harping on EITC when in fact it was Raygun who brought this to law. This was one of Rayguns better moves.

heartburn.......Oh...My mistake. I only thought that when most of the posts from the right blame the minorities, that made it a race issue. Of course the republicans have done more for race relations. Just think of the Willie Horton issue and how much that helped, or Ronnie Raygun calling them welfare queens. You are very good at pointing out the amount of money spent for programs, but very little on how the party would handle it (no surprise here). What I find funny, is that McCain and Gramm and many republicans harping on EITC when in fact it was Raygun who brought this to law. This was one of Rayguns better moves

Posted by: bill r. | March 4, 2009 11:39 AM

I haven't seen this - I think you are being over sensitive to it and exagerating intentionally..you are bringing a couple of examples that are over twenty years old...

The bottom line is that Obamas social engineering programs are telling people that you can't be successful on your own- you NEED government to GIVE you health care, a college education, pay your mortgage for you, tax the rich - who have been victimizing you, give you a job, wipe your nose blah blah blah...

Respect the constitution, Respect individual rights, Respect life... defend our country..thats all he needs and is legally required to do..

Bill R has no logical arguement, so he will throw race into the arguement - sounds like Jackson or Sharpton.
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Will the gov't taxing bodies give these same homeownersa break on their real estate taxes? I doubt it - especially here in Crook County.

"robust competition and equal and non-discriminatory access to financial services and economic opportunities in their communities" (i.e. protection against exclusionary redlining). Democrats agreed to support the bill after Republicans agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act

That folks is the root casue of this whole mess - banks having to expand "economic opportunities" to those who can't afford the loans.

Posted by: Terry | December 9, 2008 10:36 PM

Darn evil minorities!!!! No argument? A least have the b&^ls to say it like ya mean it.

Is the loss of home equity a cause of loan defaults? If you had the ability to make your mortgage payments when you had equity, shouldn't you be able to make your payments without equity.

Bill R,
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That bending of the truth you are by attacking the point by calling people racist. Show me the racist statement. If that's the best you have sitting on the dock looking out of the ocean, that's pretty sad. I guess $250K per year in interest can't buy smarts.