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Obama; If This Is True, then Shame on You
I can’t believe what I just read in the Washington Post.
Apparently,
The Obama administration plans to overhaul how it is tackling the foreclosure crisis.
And…
The first key element is that the government will provide financial incentives to lenders that cut the balance of a borrower’s mortgage. Banks and other lenders will be asked to reduce the principal owed on a loan if the amount is 15 percent more than their home is worth. The reduced amount would be set aside and forgiven by the lender over three years, as long as the homeowner remained current on the loan.
I own a little house in the ‘burbs of Phoenix, which I bought with a variable-rate mortgage at the end of 2004. It is now worth about half of what I paid for it.
A few months ago, the principal on my mortgage was comfortably more than the place was worth, and my low income was in decline. So I did the responsible thing, cut my expenses back to the bone, and raised and moved whatever money I could to cover it, and to try to pay it down. I wanted to deal with the fact that I was upside down on the mortgage and dangerously exposed to future rate increases; most of all, I wanted simply to reduce my monthly payments.
Why did I bother?
If I had not been so responsible, Obama’s plan (I still cannot quite believe it) would have given me (via my bank) YOUR money, humble tax-payer, as a gift to reduce my mortgage, and I would have gained to the tune of many thousands of dollars.
However, because I did the responsible thing, MY tax money will be going to help those who were in exactly the same situation as I, but weren’t responsible enough to live within their means and meet their obligations, perhaps because they bought a bigger car than they needed, were paying interest on credit cards they shouldn’t have been using, or whatever…
How dare the government do this? How dare they? This isn’t capitalism. It isn’t even communism. It is some upside down, messed-up mediocracy.
And it’s worth asking why I, with my low income, pay any taxes at all to reward the misfortune (at best) or irresponsibility (at worst) of others? 53% (last time I checked) of adult Americans pay no income tax. The overwhelming majority of them pay no tax because they have deductions for children. I am not one of them because I have no children. And I have no children because I cannot afford children. That too, I believe, is a responsible decision.
So now, not only will I be subsidizing the procreative choices of others that I, out of my own sense of basic responsibility (Thanks Mom) will not make, but also, my wealth will be transferred directly to a subset of them for the particular purpose of bailing them out of exactly the same situation that I had to bail myself out of – and was only able to do so precisely because I have been so careful to live within my means and save what I could for an emergency.
Libertarians like to say that “taxation is theft”. There are many good theoretical arguments for that, but somehow it just “feels” not quite right in practice. That word “theft” just feels too dramatic… and there is the (admittedly weak) argument that the theft is not quite theft because it is at least indirectly sanctioned by the majority (in theory).
But THIS does feel like theft. It feels personal. It feels like a violation. It feels like an element of society wants to exploit my carefulness and sense of responsibility to serve those who don’t live their life like me. I don’t feel like part of the investment class, barely even the middle class, but this feels like, if not a class battle, then at least a values battle – and one that I did not ask for. Are the new classes the responsible class and the irresponsible class? God knows.
For years, I have voluntarily sponsored children in the third world. I am happy to help those who are in greater difficulty than I, and I appreciate that many of them are victims of an economic system into which they are born and which is far from perfect. My neighbors in my Phoenix suburb are not those people. And even if they were, how dare you bring the force of law against me in this way when the only difference between me and those who will benefit from my money is my prudence?
When it comes to those who live in the richest country in the world, let us make our mistakes, and learn, and do better next time. Losing a house is horrible, but not the worst thing that can happen to a person. Denying the basic human right to learn from failure – think about it; it is a corollary of the right to the pursuit of happiness – and taking from those who try keep their failures from hurting others will be the death of us.
115 Responses to “Obama; If This Is True, then Shame on You”
I think this is the most relevant part of your passage:
“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?”
The parable you cite is clearly a defense of private property over the claims to that property made by others in the name of “fairness.” It is a complete indictment of the mentality behind wealth redistribution.
You must also recall the direct statement by Jesus, “My kingdom is not of this world….”
Finally, a question I put to those commenters who are concerned about those people who lose their homes under foreclosure: What do you have against the families who would be able to buy those houses if the banks sold them at reduced prices? Foreclosure doesn't destroy a single house, it just redistributes it. And I know you're usually all for redistribution of wealth.
Well, that's a strawman. There are plenty of people out there aware of and concerned with costs who have a much more reasoned response.
Strawman? That's practically a direct quote from this very page. Imavet actually said “You are delusional if you ignore the fact that Dubya shifted so much wealth towards his country club buddies.” I will concede that more reasonable views of cost exist, they're just hard to find on here. And in Congress.
In a normal economy, I'd agree that people who cannot keep up with their mortgage payments have failed in some sense. In an economy with 10% unemployment, I just don't buy it.</>
Then we should talk about the definition of “failure.” I see it as a simple question of fact, not a set of hypotheticals about what seems fair or what outcomes people might have achieved under other circumstances. These were the circumstances, and these are the outcomes. If you're failing to keep up on your mortgage, you're failing to keep up on your mortgage.
Trying to excuse the failure by tracing blame–to George Bush, or to the economy, or to bad luck–is a hopeless exercise because real life cause-and-effect is too complicated. Sure, you can blame bad luck. Or you can argue that fortune favors the well-prepared, and had these people not taken a gamble on a house, they wouldn't be facing foreclosure. Or if they'd studied harder in school, they'd have a steadier job or a bigger financial cushion.
You could argue these speculations until the end of time because there's no way to determine the “truth” about what would have happened under other circumstances. They are therefore a lousy basis for government policy.
What a ridiculous statement. I would ask you to provide some numbers but I know you don't have them. The Bush tax cuts alone cost over 2 Trillion, and that was only one aspect of the wealth transfer strategy. I could make outrageous claims too, but I prefer to remain anchored in reality.
Depends on what he does. Let's say he wants the banks to take a cramdown on LTV. What he'll probably do is say to the banks, hey if you want to qualify for any FHA loans in the future, you'll agree to this program. Note, that's not a mandate. The banks don't have to do it but it will hurt them more to forego the government subsidy to their business than to accept the cramdown, so they will do it.
Goes to the point of having government involved in business is just a bad thing all ways round.
Ah, where were you when Bush was giving TRILLIONS away to the wealthiest. Where were you when Bush was spending hundreds of billions in direct stimulus to Americans in general. Where were you when Bush was giving hundreds of billions to bankers who had created their own crisis.
Oh, right, getting ready to vote for his successor.
I think the word starts with a capital H.
The parable does not hold up in this case. Here, people who agreed to pay back a loan. One group does so, the other does not. The group that does not is now being allowed to not repay with no no penalty, and in fact with new terms advantageous to them. Those who did repay do not get those new terms.
So, there is no 'fairness', as each is not getting or giving what they agreed.
There you go with the wealth transfer strategy again. The Bush tax cuts cost the treasury money but they also skewed the tax burden in favor of the lower income households. Take a look at the years 2000 and 2006 on the following table.
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax…
In 2000, the total federal tax rate was 6.4 percent for the bottom quintile, 16.6 percent for the middle quintile, 28.0 percent for the top quintile and 33.0 percent for the top 1%.
Fast forward to 2006 and the numbers are (in the same order) 4.3, 14.2, 25.8, 31.2
So the reduction in tax rates is
Bottom quintile — 32.9%
Middle quintile — 14.5%
Top quintile –7.9%
Top 1 percent — 5.5%
So to say that Bush redistributed money to the rich through the tax code really doesn't square with the data. I'm sure the “other aspects of the wealth transfer strategy” must have been what did it.
I think you just lost your “anchored in reality” pin
You have an unusual definition of “giving,” which you consider to be a synonym for “allowing to keep.” Apparently you believe that all income belongs to the federal government to do with as it pleases. In that case, I understand why you equate tax cuts to gifts.
We can spare everyone a lot of pointless back-and-forth if we just agree to disagree on this point. You should realize, thought, that under your concept of ownership there will be a lot less income for the government to give away.
An obvious theme at TMV…………liberals think non-liberals are worthless, except for those times when it comes to recruiting someone to do the actual funding of the liberals' programs……then, without exception, liberals have no resources but for the non-liberals.
If liberals actually paid for their programs themselves, there never would be any disagreement at all and they could institute any program they desired……….but they are incapable of doing so……why is that do you think?
Despite arguments over principles, which are interesting and and revealing (and obviously important) there is the matter of where we are today. What policies need to be implemented that will best help the economy as a whole? If letting millions of homes be foreclosed on is better for the economy than helping homeowners keep paying their mortgages and keep their homes, then the draconian route would have some merit, but I doubt this is how it would work. Rather than argue ideology and pet principles we should be concerned more about boosting the economy as a whole – meaning longterm. Mortagages and home ownership isn't like buying a car, these are usually longterm investments that lead to greater economic stability overall. Oh, and by the way, most homes are still American made.
A good idea. I'll throw out some red meat for you to chew up: Let individuals and their lenders negotiate without the intervention of the federal government. If a bank thinks that it's better to change the terms of the loan than to foreclose, then fine. This is especially likely to be the case when a borrower is in temporary difficulty (and so will be able to resume paying fairly soon) or when the local housing market has collapsed (so that the bank isn't going to be able to get more from a resale than it can get from the current borrower long term). But if the bank thinks that there is someone else who's willing and able to meet its price, then I'm completely opposed to using tax money to prevent a house from changing hands.
Over to you.
“Ah, where were you when Bush was …”
I try to keep my personal life our of political discussions, but if you really want to know: For most of that time was studying full time and working part time, raising young kids, and volunteering for my church. I had little time and interest in politics. Why am I not allowed to criticize Obama?
But for those who don't have those excuses, a number of other answers come to mind:
1) Maybe they *were* speaking out against Bush's spending.
2) Maybe they are more concerned with Obama budget projections which are much higher than Bush's, even when counting his wars and even not counting recession years.
3) Maybe they were one of the large number of people on the left and the right who weren't interested in politics before the 2008 elections.
4) Maybe they are hypocritical partisans.
But simply assuming #4 is getting tiresome. If the “cost” criticism is valid, then address it.
On the other hand, if liberals want to go down the “Republicans did it too” road, they might want to remember what happened to Republicans in 2006 and 2008. Then again, after the next two elections they might console themselves with “Republicans did it too.”
Your comment is meant as a joke, right? Or are you completely unaware of the pressure brought by
the stockholders on banks to expand their lending activities to any households? In your insane world, bankers give loans to marginal applicants and then repackage the loans as AAA bonds rated by Moodys and Standard and Poors to some suckers, when the resulting house of cards falls apart, you blame the suckers who bought the Bonds and the suckers who took the mortgages but not the poor innocent bankers who had no clue as to what was going on…
Maybe you should read something besides RedState, Hot Air and Hindcracker, I would suggest staring with Calculated Risk and Naked Capitalism…
There are a lot of cheap votes, and voters, to be bought. That ObamaCo would do this is no surprise.
“What else would you expect from an administration”
whose misspending dwarfs all before it and who is leading us toward a debt trap (which limits deficits, so has them resentful) and eventually toward inflation (the true opiate of the gullible masses).
The only question is, will we actually see that happen during this decade, before the 2020s, making this decade lost, thrown away rather than used to prepare for the tougher times ahead? (So far, we're being given variously disappointing to disturbing signs that the answer is, unsurprisingly, Yes.)
Chavez treatment for creditors, buying cheap votes of cheap voters, is nothing new from these people.
“It seems like we should just pay people's mortgages for them for a while, if this is a temporary problem. That would be a lot simpler than all the rigamarole we're going to go through and probably cost a lot less.”
In fact, yes. And I thought about it when overhearing just this conversation in Michigan last year, where despite its sordid Blue and sclerotic and dinosaur reputations it still had normal people there (I was there last year, too) who told all who would listen (including me) that they would gladly take as part of the so-called “stimulus” measures a voucher, that could only be used to pay mortgage payments — not cash.
I have also noted that even some on the Left have been critical of the “stimulus” measures and the bank bailouts and all the rest, which if you total the amounts, are staggering, and what would they have accomplished, instead, had they been distributed to everyone per capita, or as severence pay to everyone who has lost a job since the start of the slump? Think about that. I have, and have posted that before, and I'm no flaming redistributionist lefty. I'm just giving examples of where we could done much more, for less.
(There are other examples, such as as that it would be cheaper for air pollution to just give everyone a new, less-polluting, car once every few years than what Washington has done instead — or related to what I discussed with someone a few years ago, rather than subsidize Kathy's rent in New Jersey, implement what liberals like Lind would want for many people, give them a house in places like the northern Great Plains, relocating them there and leaving the expensive coastal areas to liberals like Lind, or to the likes of DC-worshipping people in the news like David Frum or David Brooks, for example, who can afford to stay.)
“Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.”
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/03/indefens…
I presume you're referring to the privilege to tax, to make Robin pay other people's mortgages? That seems to be the only privilege under debate here.
However, it is from a theological perspective where this really gets murky. … “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go.'
I don't think there is anything murky about the theological perspective. For me the theological point is that we each must live our lives according to what is right. We should not try to lead others' lives for them, nor should we be envious of what they have. We must first and foremost live our lives ourselves, tend to our own spiritual garden and let others follow their own spiritual paths and learn from life's lessons. No one else can live my life for me.
I want to apologize for the “your insane world” phrase. It was meant as a jokey allusion to your avatar, but it doesn't read that way at all.
As for the mortgage market, here's the point I'd like to make in a serious way: Mortgage-backed securities were viewed as a very successful way to reduce the riskiness of individual mortgages for some time before the financial crisis. That's why I don't think that they were merely vehicles used by commercial banks and mortgage companies to fleece unsuspecting investment bankers. Instead my inclination is to try to figure out what changed in the mortgage market to induce mortgage originators to make and repackage loans that weren't such good credit risks. The only convincing answer I can find is that (1) banks were being pressured to reduce their lending standards and (2) they were reasonably confident that they'd be able to sell those loans to Fannie and Freddie. I don't believe that any bank's shareholders had any reason to want their own wealth put at risk by degraded lending standards; that just doesn't pass my “smell test.”
A different question is why savvy investment bankers were willing to buy derivatives based on packages that included riskier loans. I think this is the big mystery in the whole fiasco. I can only figure that they were confident that they'd be bailed out if things went horribly wrong–and if so, then they were right! The final piece of the puzzle, why Moody's rated these things AAA, I do not know. I do know that Moody's reputation has taken a huge hit because of this.
But simply assuming #4 is getting tiresome.
It occurs to me that one could apply that statement to the assumptions in Robin's post and in most of the responses to Robin's post in this comments section.
Its ironic that after a housing bubble where we ignored government efforts to keep home prices high (because it was popular with voters), we blame the banks and have the government worry about helping to keep home prices high. (Rewarding those who contributed to the bubble at the expense of those who didn't).
More self parody – nobody 'gave' anything to anyone by lowering taxes. That's like a mugger thinking he's giving someone the money in their wallet by not taking it.
Nice self parody. When you agree to repay you agree to repay. Except when you have no self respect or concept of personal responsibility then you cry about being a victim. Funny how people are able to find access to capital, fill out the forms and comply with all the regulations but then don't understand it all after they welsh on their debt.
Nice try, but fail.
And you say you doubt…
Here you go:
http://www.sustainablemiddleclass.com/Subsidize…
(shows that blue states donate money to the red states–not the other way round)
http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/
(details economic progress under the two parties over the last 40 years–guess who loses?)
It is conservative–I got mine, everybody else go suck it–CONSERVATIVE political thought that has run this country into the ground over the last 40 years.
And every time you guys go screw it up , the American people have a moment of lucidity and elect a Democrat that saves the bacon.
Here's more, if you don't believe it:
http://sideshow.me.uk/annex/JustForTheRecord.htm
Neither the numbers nor the facts bear out your assertions. Not that you really care.
You're welcome.
I am sure you'll hold Morgan Stanley to the same standard…
When people do it, it's commonly known as Jingle Mail, when Corporations do it, it's known as a business decision…
Because their salaries and bonuses are based on quarterly or yearly profits, so as long as they make money for the bank this year, they get their multi-million dollar bonuses… What happens next year, well that's someone else problem…
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush…
My question is even simpler: Considering that the rating agencies are paid by the bond issuers to rate the bonds, how exactly were the bonds supposed to get anything other than a AAA rating?
Sorry your comment makes no sense. If private parties agree to a settlement of the debt then it has been repaid. What is the issue?
dear shannonlee: I think education can help people tstay away from 'the edge,' but on the road, remember when i wrote about the fellow I met who wrote a book about his life as a tramp on the streets? Extraordinary education. Terrible hard breaks.
Also, for the guys and women and children who live under the bridges, same, some hard breaks for many, but also other issues, alcohol, drugs, so so many drugs, mental illness, closed head injuries, PTDS from service.
I think education can keep you from the edge, but with certain hits, nothing can keep a person from going over the edge, whatever THEY count as the edge. Some see the edge as losing priviledges they formerly enjoyed, vacations, buying 'stuff;, things like that.
For many of us though, the edge, is 'under the bridge.' I've met more homeless guys /women in the library who can quote Chaucer or know Yeats, or seem to have strong education backgrounds.
Some disaster comes from not seeing, from being lavish and not saving a cushion, especially when self employed. But some comes just from hard hard knocks.
I've a friend who owns a business, has about 100 employees. Advertised for an entry level assistant, basic, tea bringing, phone answering, keeping calendar. Over 200 people applied, many with MAs and PhDs. Serious. Serious need and serious desire to work without enough jobs.
Hi Jared: Robin, the writer, is a man.
Thanks,
dr.e
You said and I'll quote:
I am just pointing out that we have a major corporation who ran the numbers and decided not to repay despite the fact that they probably could afford it…
I am still awaiting your heartfelt condemnation of this corporation and their lack of respect toward debt…
The biggest net “contributor” states are New Jersey and Connecticut, for the simple reason that they have the highest per capita incomes in the county. Because of the progressivity of the federal income tax, residents of those states pay the most in taxes.
But this does not refute Casual Observer's point, because his point concerns individuals. For example, Obama won 57% of the vote in New Jersey in 2008, not 100%. It is quite conceivable, and in fact likely, that the high-income earners in that “blue” state are not nearly as liberal as the state as a whole, yet they're the people being called upon to pay for the programs being voted for by the 57%.
The other fallacy in the “net contributor” breakdown of the states is that even if every state had the same income and paid the same taxes, some states would surely receive more federal spending than others, for the simple reason that not all states have the exact same industrial composition. So, for example, California gets far more federal spending than Connecticut because defense-related industries are a far bigger part of its economy. So what?
Also, states that have very low population density will tend to receive higher federal spending per capita, simply as a result of federal highway spending. If the highways are going to cross a large state, then that state is going to receive a lot of highway spending just because it's big. If that state doesn't have many people in it, then spending per person is going to be high. Again, so what?
As for the data on presidential administrations and the economy, there's a simple way to summarize them: the Democrats tend to hype the economy unsustainably through monetary and fiscal policy, until they screw things up enough that the people elect a Republican to fix the mess. The fixing of the mess usually involves a recession.
To recapitulate, none of your data addresses Casual Observer's point, because he is talking about individuals, not states.
I am still awaiting your heartfelt condemnation of this corporation and their lack of respect toward debt…
The point, DQ, is that we don't have to either condemn them or bail them out. They did what they did, they'll see whatever consequences they see.
Looks like a lot of people have had fun responding to you, but I'm not going to let that stop me.
The answer to me is the same for both the parable and mortgage question: responsible living is its own reward — just ask someone who is trying to recover from either a wild past or a debt overload.
As for grace, I'm not sure that always fits here. Everyone situation is different, but in general, we should be trying to fix the core problems, and have to carefully consider the full effects of what legislation will do, not just what people want it to do. I think that's how we got here in the first place.
Anytime some is trying to argue a point at a macro level, beware. Individuals give money, not states, so the only meaningful statistics would involve people, or households.
Because there were some earlier comments about this…. The bank bailouts were done by the Bush administration and need I remind everyone that he wanted hundreds of billions of dollars from Congress with no strings attached. Thankfully Congress made the Bush administration change the terms to lessen the impact to the taxpayer. And the big bailed out banks did pay back the money, with interest.
There's quite a few regulations that i favor because they encourage transparency, but your point is well taken.
I still have to blame Fannie and Freddie for this bubble. When banks serviced their own loans, they were much better at checking people's financial condition. The mortgage-backed securities were an attempt to get more money into Fannie and Freddie, so that they could buy more loans, so that banks could make more loans. By adding so many degrees of separation from those putting up the money and those who originated the loans, they made it hard to determine who was responsible for failures. Bad idea.
I personally don't blame either liberals or conservatives, because bailing out commercial failures doesn't fit into either ideology, at least as I would understand them. But both Democrats and Republicans, including both presidential candidates, supported it, knowing that it wasn't popular with people.
[...] can understand why some are tired of fighting the good fight. Robin Koerner at The Moderate Voice reacts to the Obama Administration’s plan to offer incentives if mortgage holders will forgive [...]
[...] can understand why some are tired of fighting the good fight. Robin Koerner at The Moderate Voice reacts to the Obama Administration’s plan to offer incentives if mortgage holders will forgive [...]
How much should it really matter that the value of your house is now less than the value of the mortgage you took? I ask this with the thought that these values are constantly changing, and for the most part, going up. I don't know the exact percentages, but aren't home values up something like 30% over the last decade even after taking into consideration the housing decline? And while one's home value may have gone down, if your income has remained the same, the value of the home should not figure in your ability to pay said mortgage. Yes, it entirely sucks that at the moment you may be paying on a mortgage that is worth more than the house, but unless you plan to sell anytime soon, this shouldn't be an issue. Houses aren't supposed to be short-term investments.
Okay, let's look at individual behavior, then.
Here's the breakdown on the 2008 Election vote, quite detailed:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26843704
To highlight a couple of areas: those people making more than $200,000 a year, voted for Obama 52% to McCain's 46%. Total Family income of over $100,000, was split 49% to 49%.
Those are the top 20% of wage earners in the country, I believe. Clearly, there were some wealthy people who voted Democratic despite warnings from the right of taxes, taxes, taxes.
The people McCain won overwhelmingly in 2008 were white, non college graduates (an 18 point advantage). He also won white people between the ages of 30 and 65+. He lost every other demographic. EVERY OTHER DEMOGRAPHIC.
Superdestroyer is probably the only conservative here who has actually internalized this–Republicans have lost everyone except for middle aged white people.
Split by age, the only demographic McCain won was the over 65 vote. It's true. Look it up.
Hence, these same bitter whites, regroup and now call them selves “Tea Partiers” and spout any number of nonsense slogans such as ” I want my country back!” or “Socialism!”. Nooo, what they really want is to still be calling the shots, even though their political philosophy FAILED.
In terms of education, Obama won every single education demographic. There was not a single level of education that voted overall for McCain, from non HS grads to post graduate candidates.
I know you wanted examples of individual behavior. Voting seems pretty individual to me. Accepting that INDIVIDUALLY, the country rejected Republican principles and leadership in 2008, is the adult thing to do.
True but run the survey on Obama's popularity today and you'd get quite a different result. Voters are fickle. ; )
You said “[t]he Bush tax cuts alone cost over 2 Trillion, and that was only one aspect of the wealth transfer strategy.
You think the Bush tax cuts were a transfer of wealth? I'm assuming your argument is that Bush took money from the poor and middle class and gave it to his rich buddies. How do you reconcile that with reality? This is from the Tax Foundation (source: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/24944.html)
Newly released data from the IRS clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the “rich” are not paying their fair share of taxes.
Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.
Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.
To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.
Some in Washington say the tax system is still not progressive enough. However, the recent IRS data bolsters the findings of an OECD study released last year showing that the U.S.—not France or Sweden—has the most progressive income tax system among OECD nations. We rely more heavily on the top 10 percent of taxpayers than does any nation and our poor people have the lowest tax burden of those in any nation.
It's not the voters who are fickle. They've only just begun to realize the extent to which they were lied to in the last campaign.
Handouts continue … deficits are no concern I guess.
OK so this guy is saying less than a year ago he had:
1. Low income, that was getting lower.
2. A house that was upside down.
2.1 A house seriously upside down. His previous sentence asserts he brought it in 2004 and is now worth about half of what he paid for it!
3. By simply 'cutting back', he was able to dramatically reduce his balance…
Is it me or does something not add up here? I have an above average income but even if my monthly expenses were reduced to zero and I devoted my entire paycheck to paying down my mortgage I could only make a tiny dent in it over “a few months”. Perhaps the key is he says his mortgage is a variable rate mortgage. I suspect most of his reduction in monthly payments has come not from his heroic paydown sprint over the last few months but from the fact that interest rates of dropped dramatically since 2004.
As far as his complaint, it's the classic cutting your nose off to spite your face….or to use an anology FDR used, refusing to lend your next door neighbor a hose to put out his burning house. The thousands of foreclosures in the Phoenix area aren't doing anything to help reward him for his 'responsibility'. They are making his plight even worse by driving down his home value even more making it impossible for him to refinance (which now would be a great time for him to do to lock in a low rate). If banks work with some homeowners like him to avoid at least a portion of foreclosures until the economy turns around life would be better for all of us.
FWIW, I don't think the voters were lied to. I think they did what they often do which is imbued a candidate with the positions they'd like him or her to have as opposed to the positions that were spoken. I had many debates with friends of mine who voted for Obama where I'd say “but you recognize he's for policy x or y” and they'd say some version “yes but he won't really do it”
My own view is a careful read of what Obama said during the campaign is entirely consistent with his actions while in office. Whether the voters understood that or not is a different question.
Actually it's got nothing to do with noses and faces. It's simply a question of whether you can continue to erode the notion of responsibility without killing it.
To argue that the citizens of the 50 states should pay to artificially raise the value of houses in Phoenix for a period of time doesn't make much sense to me unless you believe that the value of those houses today is artificially low. I've not seen any facts that would lead me to that conclusion. Indeed, the fact that prices continue to fall in most areas might suggest the opposite conclusion is correct.