From the Maha -
RUSH: Now, here is a telling story within the story. This is a Reuters story, and it was published today. "U.S. Home Rescue Plan Delaying, Not Solving Crisis." There's a telling story within this story. After describing the macro-failure of Obama's bill that claimed to help people who can't afford their home to keep their home, this Reuters story tells the story of an individual that tried to get help from our president and got slapped down. It's a teachable moment. "Within weeks of taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama rode to the rescue of homeowners resigned to financial ruin. Obama, grappling with the worst U.S. housing crisis since the Great Depression, pledged to help as many as 9 million families keep their homes by reworking their mortgages."
Yes, he made that pledge. He didn't live up to it. He failed. "Eight months later, the plan is plagued by delays, red tape and, some critics say, a reluctance by banks to do their part. Just 17 percent of eligible borrowers have had their loans modified and monthly payments cut. Hardly any have been given a cut in the amount they owe on homes which are now worth less. That means many successful applicants are left with loans that they still will not be able to afford in the long run. So instead of resolving the housing crisis that pushed the U.S. economy into recession, America may be prolonging it and, in the process, stunting the global recovery." So how is that hope and change working for you?
We're on the verge, we got the media breathlessly watching the Senate Finance Committee vote on nationalizing health care, and we've got a story today on how a simple little program failed! Remember how they botched cash for clunkers and delayed any genuine recovery in the auto industry. Now we've got this little program that had all these wonderful intentions. Why, to help poor people whose houses had been destroyed, value-wise, with the plunge in the economy! "Wow, we don't want to foreclose on them," Obama said. "We want to find a way to have them keep their homes." Just 17% have had their loans modified. Instead of resolving the housing crisis, America may be prolonging it by not just letting the market work. The market will take care of this, but if you phony...
It's like the poor people in Michigan. Okay, give 'em whatever they're going to get from $15 million in stimulus. But that's eventually going to dry up. And then what do they do? They need work. They need jobs, a steady source of income that results from their work. Okay, so pass out some help for a mortgage. But it's going to end someday. You can't pay everybody's mortgage forever, and then what do these people do? So we're just delaying the inevitable -- and in the process of the delay, we're making the whole problem worse and we're deepening it, because we are delaying the market correction which will automatically happen if you just get out of the way and let it. But these are central planners. They know better than you. They know what kind of car you ought to drive. They know what kind of health insurance you ought to have.
They know what kind of doctor you ought to see. They know what tests you ought to get and what tests you shouldn't get! They know everything. They know which vaccine you should take. They know everything better than you do, and they get their hands on these things and they screw it up every time. They have screwed up the Great Society. They screwed up the War on Poverty. Poverty has won! It's time to declare a winner. Poverty is winning and it's getting worse, after how many trillions that have been spent on it? And now this little program with great intentions. "Oh, yeah, Obama's going to keep me in my house! Obama is going to let me stay in my house!" Oh, Obama is not. Obama's not letting you stay in your house. And the scams associated with this are too numerous to even detail.
The total number of scams related to this mortgage relief program is massive. This makes the scam of the phony, fake applications for the people in Detroit last week for 20 bucks a pop look like a kid's lemonade stand. The scams going on in this program are just... And the people are scamming the government. Any time you put a... This is unalterable; it's not arguable. Any time you put a big pile of money in front of people you're going to have a bunch of different ways people try to get it. Some are going to try to work for it and come by to honestly. Others are going to say, "Ah-ha-ha! Look at all that! I'm going to find a way to scheme and get it" Now, imagine the pile of money people in Washington have to play with every day, but they can't even manage it. They have to print money that we don't have. They have to tax people who are not yet born.
It's just breathtaking to behold. "'Every single policy we've seen has merely kicked the problem down the road,' said Laurie Goodman, a veteran analyst at broker-dealer Amherst Securities Group LP, which specializes in residential mortgage-backed securities. 'But there is no easy solution to the underlying problems.'" Yes, there is! It's called "cut taxes across the board and reduce government spending." Americans need jobs! They need their employers to be flush with cash. They need work. They don't need handouts financed by their neighbors. They need work, a steady stream of income. It is not compassionate to tease people with a handout there and a handout there, and then what happens when it's gone? Like I've always said: We conservatives define compassion not by how many people are receiving government assistance. We instead define compassion by counting the number of people who no longer need it.