President George W. Bush has huddled with his economic advisers over the past few weeks. He knows about the foreclosures. He sees the job statistics. He hears warnings that things may get worse. And so he’s about to propose his bold new plan: Have confidence.
And in addition to “no new taxes,” he will be offering No New Stimulus:
President George W. Bush today will argue that the sputtering U.S. economy is fundamentally sound without offering new initiatives to stimulate it or to help homeowners facing mortgage defaults.
“Americans should have confidence that this economy will return to stronger growth,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, previewing an address Bush plans to give today to a gathering of business and finance leaders in New York. “You shouldn’t look for new major announcements.”
A surge in defaults on mortgages to higher-risk borrowers spurred the collapse of the U.S. home loan market. Defaults have continued to rise even as the Federal Reserve has cut the benchmark interest rate five times since September. The Bush administration has urged lenders to help homeowners by modifying mortgage terms.
Congress wants the government to do more. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, saying the U.S. is in a recession, offered a plan yesterday to let the Federal Housing Administration insure refinanced mortgages after lenders reduce principal to help struggling borrowers.
Here’s an idea:
The late President Gerald Ford offered a WIN button (Whip Inflation Now). Where’s the HC button Bush wants to give out to people losing their homes, their jobs, who have bills they can’t pay, the landlords who have vacant office space, the developers who started condos but had to halt them or can’t sell them?
An HC button would be a good idea. Hillary Clinton could also get some mileage out of it.
UPDATE: With only few changes in the words, Bush could use this as his theme song when he talks about his plans for the economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXHabCTCB0g
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.