Congress Approves Housing Market Rescue Bill

[Sungold]

What are they thinking??? How can we continue to spend hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars every year "above and beyond" the already bloated budgeted expendetures? Am I missing something or have we passively entered into an irreversable fiscal death spiral?

[JPK1NH]

They are not thinking and that is the problem.

Any Rep or Senator that has voted for a combination of Big Pork Bills like the Farm Bill or the Housing Bailout for Stupid People and Bad Lenders should be dealt with by being voted out and forced to find gainful employment.

[J-Bees]

well maby they will bail the bee keepers out if we all join in with the looses letting them know it just not right to bail out this compainy and not ours:}:}

[Eaglerock]

well maby they will bail the bee keepers out if we all join in with the looses letting them know it just not right to bail out this compainy and not ours:}:}

Here Here... :) Losses are big right now...they don't have our ladies they don't have food.

[JPK1NH]

Welcome to Agriculture.....there are good years and bad years....generally speaking the good outweigh the bad......

Gov shouldn't be subsidizing anyone or any industry.

[J-Bees]

Welcome to Agriculture.....there are good years and bad years....generally speaking the good outweigh the bad......

Gov shouldn't be subsidizing anyone or any industry.


I agree:

But the Gov don't subsidize anyone we do as tax payers. Heck My boss has lots of land an is farming it but his rich nabior whom is also RICH takes the Gov money for not growing any crops. He won't even mow the fields untill hunting time just so he an anyone he invites can see something to shoot at.

[JPK1NH]

[B][CENTER]
I agree:

But the Gov don't subsidize anyone we do as tax payers.

Agreed....its unfortunate that not enough people pay attention to how their elected officials vote and spend the taxpayers money...if they did we might not be in the hole we're in now.

[Bodo]

I wonder how many of these poor people that were forced to but these houses that they can't afford have new cars and a boat in the drive way along with plamsa screen TV's on the wall?

[Keith Jarrett]

well maby they will bail the bee keepers out }:}

J-B, what rock have you been sleeping under?

They have had us keepers in the farm bill the whole time!

Do you know why they only bury beekeepers two feet deep???????


SO THEY CAN STILL GET THERE HAND OUT!

[high rate of speed]

lol.:D

[JPK1NH]

Interesting article in Wall St Journal on this.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121702566810986065.html?mod=opinion_main_review_ and_outlooks

In the rush to bulldoze the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac and housing bailout bill through Congress this week, scant attention has been paid in Washington to how the U.S. system fell into this hole. Thus it was refreshing to see Senator John McCain step up and speak rude truth to his colleagues about the fiasco in an op-ed piece this week.

"Americans should be outraged at the latest sweetheart deal in Washington," the Republican presidential hopeful wrote in the St. Petersburg Times, stating the clear but all-too-often unspoken reality about this greatest of boondoggles. Yesterday 80 Senators voted to end debate on the bill. Only 13 voted against. That makes it all but inevitable that the bailout will pass today and go to the President early next week. Senator Jim DeMint has slowed the bill by requesting a commitment from his colleagues that sometime in the future, they would hold a vote on barring Fannie and Freddie from lobbying.

Senator McCain, who wasn't present for the cloture vote, also called for an end to their multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign. More importantly, he called for "making them [Fannie and Freddie] go away," as in, be no more. Receivership may indeed by the only option if a regulator can't get the far-flung activities of these two under control.

Politics today is endless self-calculation, but Mr. McCain deserves some credit for bucking the Washington consensus on this debacle. Barack Obama likely won't be in the Senate tomorrow for the vote on the bailout, but voters deserve to know whether he sides with the Beltway mortgage combines or taxpayers when it comes to Fan and Fred.

[Barry Digman]

Here's a little press release from the NAR in case anyone is wondering who is supporting this type of legislation. People would be floored if they knew how much money the Realtor PAC spends each year on lobbying and contributions to political races. My inbox will begin to fill up this week with messages from mortgage brokers and others who will have actually read the nearly 700 pages of this legislation and will have already begun to figure out how to finagle the system to their advantage. Like most of the nonsense spending bills coming out of Congress these days, a few folks will make millions and at the end of the day the leglislation will have more unintended consequences than anyone anticipated. Few, if any, of them will be good for us.



REALTORS® Hail Housing Bill
Washington, July 24, 2008

Today's passage of The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 by the House of Representatives will help bring stability to the housing market and stem the rising rate of foreclosures, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

NAR thanked Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., and the House of Representatives for their bipartisan efforts in getting H.R. 3221 passed.

“Realtors® are in the business of building communities, and our 1.2 million members understand that this legislation will go a long way in helping people buy and keep their homes,” said NAR President Dick Gaylord, a broker with RE/MAX Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach, Calif. “We look forward to prompt Senate action to finalize this bill, helping ensure that every American who can afford to own a home and wants to do so will have the opportunity and that everyone who responsibly owns a home is able to keep it. This bill must get to the president quickly, and we urge him to act immediately to sign it into law.”

NAR has expressed ongoing support for the major features in the housing package. The legislation includes Federal Housing Administration Modernization that will simplify and make FHA-backed mortgages more available while helping thousands of families refinance existing mortgages and keep their homes. Other important components of the bill that NAR supports are reform of the government-sponsored enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), permanent increases to both GSE and FHA loan limits, a first-time home buyer tax credit and a program to expand FHA that would allow more homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

“The $7,500 tax credit for first-time home buyers is a needed stimulus for a weak housing market,” said Gaylord. “This bill would extend the tax credit availability through June 2009, which would have a further positive effect on the housing market.”