John Kerry succeeded in getting some help for people struggling with mortgages! GREAT NEWS!

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Senate passes Kerry Initiatives to help struggling homeowners, promote affordable housing
Jul 11
Provisions will help thousands of Massachusetts homeowners survive declining housing market



BOSTON - Senator John Kerry announced that the Housing and Economic Recovery Act passed the Senate by a vote of 63-5 earlier today. The bill contains four key provisions, introduced by Kerry, which will help thousands of Massachusetts homeowners survive the nation's rapidly declining housing market.

"Foreclosures are devastating families here in Massachusetts each and every day, and this housing package will throw them a lifeline. It will help to reduce the number of foreclosures, increase access to safe and fair mortgage credit for all homebuyers and help create much-needed jobs. It's a good first step and I strongly urge my colleagues in the House and the President to support these important safeguards that will help millions of hard-working Americans get back on their feet," said Senator Kerry.

Four key provisions included in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act introduced by Senator Kerry:

* Kerry worked with Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) to include the Mortgage Revenue Bond Provision, which provides an additional $11 billion of tax-exempt private activity bonds to housing finance agencies. The provision would allow the proceeds from the bonds to be used to refinance subprime loans, provide mortgages for first time homebuyers and for multifamily rental housing. This means that approximately $209 million in targeted mortgage relief will be available to the homeowners of Massachusetts, which could result in as may as 1,000 new loans in Massachusetts. Nationwide this would result in close to 87,000 additional loans.

* The bill also contains provisions to amend the Service Members Civil Relief Act (SCRA) by extending the period a lender must wait before starting disclosure procedures from 90 days to nine months after a service member has returned from active duty and capping interest on mortgages at 6 percent for one year after a serviceperson completes his/her services.

* The bill also establishes a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, introduced by Kerry and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) which requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to set aside a portion of their profits of which, 65 percent will be used for the Housing Trust Fund (approximately $3.4 billion over ten years), and 35 percent will go toward a Capital Magnet Fund to leverage affordable housing development and community development activities. In 2000, Kerry wrote the first National Affordable Housing Trust Fund legislation to construct, rehabilitate, and preserve 1.5 million units of housing over the next 10 years.

* The bill includes $3.92 billion for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program which will help local communities fight the effects of foreclosure. Earlier this year, Kerry, along with Senator Edward Kennedy, sent a letter to the Senate leadership underscoring the need for $2 billion in additional funding for CDBG in the upcoming housing legislation.

The bill now heads to the House of Representatives for its approval.

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1. forgot the link

http://www.johnkerryforsenate.com/news/entry/senate_passes_kerry_initiatives_to_help_struggling_homeowners_promote_affor/

[notesdev]

2. Bad economics

It helps a few individuals at the expense of the many to bail out deals that should never have been made in the first place.

And this is a gem, in light of today's news:

"* The bill also establishes a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, introduced by Kerry and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) which requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to set aside a portion of their profits of which, 65 percent will be used for the Housing Trust Fund (approximately $3.4 billion over ten years), and 35 percent will go toward a Capital Magnet Fund to leverage affordable housing development and community development activities. In 2000, Kerry wrote the first National Affordable Housing Trust Fund legislation to construct, rehabilitate, and preserve 1.5 million units of housing over the next 10 years."

By the time this makes it into law, if it is law, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may not exist in their current form.

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4. Good economics and good use of government.

For one...how does people living on the streets help our country? hmmm...higher crime something to feel proud of?

For two...The initial bailouts of the banks helped the BIG CEO's but didn't help the little guys. It's way past time we take care of people

And three. Who the f*** cares about Fanny and Freddy or what form they take? What matters is that GOOD GOVERNMENT takes care of the COMMON GOOD.

And that's what this bill does!

[notesdev]

13. It helps private good, not the public good

Have no illusions about this... any money thrown at this is going to be eaten as losses, by a far larger number of people than will benefit from such a law.

The primary beneficiaries of this will be the banks that made the bad loans in the first place, not the borrowers. And helping the borrowers takes money that could be used for the public good and puts it into private hands.

Good government is not about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

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15. it helps STRUGGLING PEOPLE AND it helps the COMMUNITY

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16. Tell the Vets that.

PS. Free Republic is around the corner, turn right, go ten doors down....

[notesdev]

18. Tell the people who own nothing and will pay for this that

There is no justice in the government taking money from people who own no home and giving it to others to accumulate private wealth.

I respect the service of our veterans as much as anybody, but they are not the primary beneficiaries here, banks are.

Everyone here complains about corporate welfare, and rightfully so; too bad there are not many who recognize it when they see it.

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19. Do you know what? You're basically making up shit. What are you, a future Rove protege?

[notesdev]

21. Are you telling me that people who rent don't pay taxes?

Unless you are saying that, which is an obvious falsehood, I don't see how you can fail to connect the dots. Renters who pay taxes will be subsidizing the acquisition of private property by people who took mortgages they could not afford. This in effect punishes people who made wise financial decisions and didn't choose to go over their heads and borrow money they could not repay.

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20. BTW..it clearly states that the PROFITS from the loans will be set aside in a TRUST to help fund

this.

That's not taking away from anybody.

Jesus Christ, what's with you?

You think those CEO's of those big corporations are poor little unsuspecting nobodies who don't own shit?

The funding ISN"T COMING from the POOR. It's coming from the corporations who have made HUGE PROFITS off the middleclass.

[notesdev]

22. There are NO profits, none zero zip nada

If you haven't been following the news... Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are insolvent. So any trust fund intended to be financed by profits from those two companies will have exactly zero in it.

What throwing more money at this problem does is bail out the BANKS who made bad loans. Instead of eating losses they get loans covered with public money. If that isn't the corporate welfare that you rail against... what is?

Listen... just get some education as to how housing economics works before you get yourself all worked up about what you imagine to be the case. Any public money being thrown at bad loans sacrifices the public interest for private interest. They throw a sympathetic figure into the mix and they get people like you who know not the first thing about mortgage financing hook, line and sinker.

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23. there WERE profits. Where did those profits go? Bad loans? CEO's pocketbooks?

Because we know they were making profits OR if they haven't made profits then they've cooked the books.

[notesdev]

24. Where the profits went

1 - into the pockets of shareholders and bondholders
2 - back into buying mortgages, many of which are turning bad
3 - into the funding of unprofitable, otherwise unfunded Congressional mandates
4 - a small percentage went into the pockets of executives, many of whom have already been purged in disgrace due to the accounting scandals from a few years ago

You want to go about recovering #4, be my guest - you have my support. You'll need a Constitution-violating ex-post-facto law to do it, but hey, that seems all the rage nowadays, and we haven't followed the Constitution seriously for generations already - might as well dispense with the charade, now is as good a time as any.

As far as the rest... whatever shareholders got in the form of dividends is dwarfed by the 80-90% drop in the value of their stock holdings. Bad mortgages represent an outright loss of capital - they can recover the real estate, but the value thereof is a fraction of the money lent. Likewise, servicing Congressional mandates is money negative.

Pretty much the worst punishment that can be meted out - making the company go bankrupt - is already under way, both companies are now effectively worthless. These weren't exactly the most productive and efficient companies to begin with - the only reason why they ever made any profits in the first place was that they were given a privileged monopoly position by Congress.

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26. Question...

What about Sallie Mae? I'm curious about their financial stability. Since students can not get out of their loans without claiming a temporary forebearance. One wonders if they're going to collapse too.

[notesdev]

27. Can't say for sure

I don't know the education loan market like I know the housing market. What I do know is that defaults are significantly higher than they counted on, largely due to the ballooning cost of education - and the major recession/depression we're in the beginning of isn't going to help matters any. Their losses will be somewhat mitigated by the fact that the government is directly involved as a lender/guarantor in a lot of these loans (as opposed to the mortgage situation where the government is at a remove from Fannie and Freddie and the lenders have fewer tools to cover losses) and can recover a good portion of losses by withholding tax refunds to cover unpaid loans. Personally, I wouldn't consider it a good investment, other student-loan backed investments have been heading south and I doubt Sallie Mae will escape the pain.

[TayTay]

6. Yeah, those veterans who were getting kicked out in 90 days

Damn that Kerry for getting them 8 months before foreclosure can begin.

Geez, why are we letting the needs of these few people, relative to population, take such resources.

Notesdev is right, we should never try to help out people in need.

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8. Gosh isn't it the "good economics" that screwed this country over and allowed the corps to rob us

blind?

[Mojorabbit]

12. The freddie mac part confuses me

Everything I read today insinuates they are insolvent and the taxpayers will probably end up on the hook for five trillion dollars. What profit is he talking about?

[globalvillage]

3. Excellent. Thanks RoL!

The Senate passed Sen. Kerry's e-prescription bill this week, too.

Great news in the Senate this week with this and the Medicare bill and Teddy coming back to vote.

K&R

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7. Like I wrote above...Senator Kerry understand the purpose of good gov't. ..the part that was created

for the "COMMON GOOD".

[World Citizen]

5. first we have to listen to the whiners...

now we have to cater to them too?
Mortgage foreclosures are a state of mind.

but wait a minute... At least 13 republicans agree that economic recovery is needed. Do they question Mccanomics?

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9. good economics=catering to Enron, to Halliburten, to Exxon-Mobile, to banks and credit sharks.

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10. we are a country that PREFERS CORPORATE WELFARE.

F*ck the average American who got screwed by the corps.

We need to GIVE GIVE GIVE all the $$$ and opportunity to Corps and we MUST screw the little guy.

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11. AP link

http://www.yahoo.com/s/915723

[politicasista]

14. K&R

:kick:

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17. thanks for the k/r

[politicasista]

29. you're welcome n/t

[EFerrari]

25. Kerry gets it right again.

K&R

[trashcanistanista]

28. I've always wondered why the mortgage companies

didn't take it upon themselves to intervene and refinance their customers when the wave of foreclosures hit. It seemed like they were waiting for the govt. to bail them out. Now they are stuck with inventory that has lost value and is deteriorating while sitting unsold and unmaintained. It seems like they would lose more as this is prolonged. Did they know a govt bailout would be imminent and did they intentionally not do anything and let people lose their homes? Can those of us who have affordable mortgages get a better rate now that our homes have devalued since we bought them?

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30. well, from what I can tell...

they increased the value of the homes in the neighborhood to make those loans. I don't know if they did this artificially. But if you refinance now, I bet you if your loan is at 150k, it would get assessed at 100k now.

[lonestarnot]

31. Certainly sounds good to me!

:applause: