Send the "blame dems" crowd these articles

[radfringe]

please notice the dates - 2004 - repubs still in charge

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040809-9.html

Fact Sheet: America's Ownership Society: Expanding Opportunities

"...if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country. The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America, and the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country."

-President George W. Bush, June 17, 2004

The Challenge: America's Changing Society

Life in America is changing dramatically, and President Bush believes that the Federal government should change too to help meet the challenges of our times. American families should have choices and access they need to affordable health care and homeownership; Americans should have the option of managing their own retirement; and small businesses, which employ over half of all workers, need lower taxes and fewer government mandates so they can grow.


Expanding Homeownership. The President believes that homeownership is the cornerstone of America's vibrant communities and benefits individual families by building stability and long-term financial security. In June 2002, President Bush issued America's Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. President Bush's initiative to dismantle the barriers to homeownership includes:

-American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families;

-Affordable Housing. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which would increase the supply of affordable homes;

-Helping Families Help Themselves. The President has proposed increasing support for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program; and

-Simplifying Homebuying and Increasing Education. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners.

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from bloomberg:

March 22 2004: Greenspan Backs Homeowner Debt as Prices Increase
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/62116#comment-652441

March 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. homeowners have amassed a record $6.82 trillion of mortgage debt as real estate values jumped in the past decade, and have borrowed against their homes for spending money. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the nation's guardian of financial stability, is supporting them.

``We know that increases in home values and the borrowing against home equity likely helped cushion the effects of a declining stock market during 2001 and 2002,'' Greenspan said in a Feb. 23 speech in Washington.

Some economists including Yale University's Robert Shiller say they disagree with the Fed chairman, arguing that consumers shouldn't use home values to supplement spending when their hourly wages are rising at the slowest pace on record and the savings rate is a third of the last decade's average. As borrowing costs rise, mortgage payments may jump for households with adjustable-rate loans, causing delinquencies, Shiller says.

``Lenders are allowing people to borrow more against their house, but Greenspan is saying that home prices are outstripping that,'' said Shiller, a 57-year-old professor of economics at Yale, in a March 18 phone interview from Rome. His 2000 book, ``Irrational Exuberance,'' published before the 2001-2002 market slide, argued that stocks were overvalued.

The surge in house values is ``not going to continue,'' Shiller said. ``It's already slowing down in a number of cities, where we could see home price declines. There is a possibility of a real problem. I wouldn't minimize it.'' Last year's 7.5 percent jump in the median house price to $170,000 was the biggest since an 11.7 percent increase in 1980.

[radfringe]

1. kick