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Posted on Mon, Jun. 17, 2002

Courting Minorities, Bush Promotes Homeownership
BY ADAM ENTOUS

ATLANTA - (Reuters) - Taking a break from Middle East diplomacy to court African-American and Hispanic voters before the November election, President Bush on Monday outlined plans to use loans and tax credits to boost the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million before 2010.

"There are too many people ... who say, 'My eyes are shut to the American dream, I don't see the American dream,'" Bush told the Pryor Road community in Atlanta where a $68 million redevelopment program is underway.

"By the year 2010, we must increase minority homeowners by at least 5 1/2 million," he said. "In order to close the home ownership gap, we've got to set a big goal for America and focus our attention and resources on that goal."

Bush urged mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financial support targeted to minority home buyers by as much as $440 billion and called on the real estate industry to join with "the mighty muscle" of the federal government to help reach his goal.

The president said he wanted Congress to commit $200 million annually of taxpayers' money to help 40,000 families each year with their downpayment and closing costs. He also proposed $2.4 billion in tax credits to encourage developers to build 200,000 homes for low and moderate income families.

"Part of economic security is owning your own home," Bush said after he watched foundations being poured and toured newly finished houses in the mixed-income community that replaced troubled public housing tenements built in the 1950s. "Part of being a secure America is to encourage home ownership."

CLOSE THE GAP

The initiative came as Bush prepared to lay out a pathway to Palestinian statehood, probably this week, underscoring the importance his political advisers place on domestic issues in the run-up to Congressional elections on Nov. 5.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said an announcement on the Middle East was likely to come "in the very near future," though he would not give a date. "The president has been consulting with world leaders. When he's ready to say something, he will say something," McClellan said. Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah consulted by telephone on Sunday.

Support from blacks, Hispanics and other minorities could give Republicans an edge in their bid to retake control of the Senate and hold onto the House of Representatives. Bush's own re-election hopes in 2004 may also hinge on minority voters.

"Three-quarters of white America owns their homes. Less than 50 percent of African-Americans are part of the home ownership in America and less than 40 percent of the Hispanics who live here in this country own their home," Bush said. "And that has got to change for the good of the country."

Barriers to minority home ownership included a shortage of funds for downpayment and closing costs, the complexity of the home-buying process as well as discrimination by mortgage lenders, he said.

While the overall homeownership rate has reached an all-time high of nearly 68 percent, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has found the gap between minorities and white households has narrowed only slightly.

Non-Hispanic whites have a 74.3 percent homeownership rate, compared to 48 percent for African Americans and 47.6 percent for Hispanics, according to census data for 2002.

In addition to greater lending by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bush proposed raising $750 million by 2007 to supplement homeownership initiatives in minority areas and said he would call a White House conference on an unspecified date to address the minority home ownership gap.

"I mean, when I lay out a goal, I mean it," he said. "I'm serious about this. This is a very important initiative for all of America."

"Show me where George W. Bush has EVER said he supports AFFIRMATIVE ACTION."

Still pouring kool-aid Howlin?

Bush administration to defend affirmative action

Bush to defend affirmative action policy

Bush selling out on Affirmative Action to get votes

Never-Ending Supreme Court Case Has Bush Fighting for Affirmative Action

Bush Administration Defends Affirmative Action

Reuters
By James Vicini
Friday August 10 8:52 PM ET
Source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disappointing conservatives who wanted the government to switch sides, the Bush administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) on Friday to uphold a federal affirmative action program .

The Republican administration defended the Transportation Department's highway construction program that favors minority and disadvantaged businesses, maintaining the position the previous Democratic administration adopted a day before President Bill Clinton left office.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson said the program's regulations were ``narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest'' and that ``Congress has a compelling interest in eliminating discrimination and its effects on government spending and procurement.''

The closely watched case marked the first test of affirmative action during George W. Bush's presidency, and drew sharp criticism from opponents of racial preferences.

Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, said, ``I think this is not only horrendous policy, I think it is bad politics.''

Chavez, who was named by Bush to be labor secretary but withdrew after a furor erupted over a domestic worker living in her home, said federal contracting would have been an easy case for the administration to draw the line against racial preferences.

``To cave in so early bodes poorly for the administration taking a stand later on,'' she said. ``I think the motivation behind this decision was political.''

CONSERVATIVES HOPED FOR CHANGE

Conservatives opposed to affirmative action had hoped the Bush White House would change the government's position on the issue, based on the president's stand during the campaign and prior statements by top administration officials.

During the campaign, Bush opposed affirmative action programs that used racial quotas, but generally supported greater opportunity for minorities, calling it ``affirmative access.''

Olson, the government's chief advocate before the high court, has previously been critical of affirmative action programs. As a senator from Missouri, Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) opposed the contracting program.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese and Chapman University law professor John Eastman, in an article published in the Washington Times on Friday, cited a 1998 speech by then-Sen. Ashcroft opposing use of race classifications in federal law.

Bush and Ashcroft should ``place government-sanctioned racial discrimination back where it belongs -- in the course of ultimate extinction,'' Meese, a top White House aide and attorney general during Ronald Reagan (news - web sites)'s presidency in the 1980s, and Eastman wrote.

The case began 11 years ago to the day when Adarand Construction Inc., a Colorado construction highway firm owned by a white man, initially sued over a 1990 program that set aside construction contracts for minority businesses.

The Supreme Court in a 1995 ruling in the case imposed tough new standards before the government can give preferences for minorities.

After the ruling, Congress reauthorized the law and the Transportation Department revised the program.

A U.S. appeals court upheld the revised program, and the Supreme Court then agreed to hear Adarand's latest argument that the program amounted to unlawful race discrimination.

Olson urged the high court to affirm the appeals court's decision. ``Eliminating racial discrimination and its effects remains one of the nation's greatest challenges,' he said in the 50-page brief.

The current program ``is not unconstitutional on its face,'' Olson said.

He argued that ``discrimination, not race, is the key'' to getting status as a disadvantaged business, and that the regulations seek to limit that status to firms owned by individuals who have suffered the effects of bias.

The high court will hear the case in its term that begins in October, with a decision due by the end of June.

Who stated the following:

"Government ought to have a policy that helps people with a downpayment."

A. - OR - B.

Answer

You are not hallucinating, he really wants to have the government provide downpayments.

A Government Limited To What?

Only your hairdresser can tell the difference