Copyright by John T. Reed

My son bought a foreclosure

In December, 2008, my 27-year-old son and his wife bought their first home. It was a bank foreclosure. They had to make over 20 offers to get one. The failed offers were not low ball. The banks simply did not respond.

One explanation was that they kept hearing from Obama that he was going to do some sort of bailout for the dishonest and/or irresponsible home buyers who bought properties they could not afford. The banks that owned the foreclosed homes did not want to sell to my son or any other solvent buyer if the federal government was going to offer them a better deal.

No bargain

My son and his wife paid $300,000, which was no bargain at the time or since, and have been making their mortgage payments on time since they bought the house. They are very excited, thrilled, and fixing it up. They also bought a puppy. Previously, as tenants, they were not allowed to have a dog. This is all good for my son, his wife, and America. People like them are the real “stimulus” package American needs.

Prior owner overpaid and stopped making mortgage payments

The prior owner of my son’s house paid $525,000 several years ago. He got divorced and stopped making the payments. I do not know why he stopped making the payments. In the vast majority of cases, people stop making home mortgage payments because they have no equity in the home. Studies have proven that, and it’s obvious logic.

Democrats have been saying it’s because they lost their job. Not true. People who lose their job but who still have equity in their home find a way to protect it through friends, relatives, or by selling the house before it gets foreclosed to extract their equity.

The way it has always been done

My son’s case illustrates the normal way people not making their mortgage payments is handled. Furthermore, it is the right way. It is the way it’s been done for centuries, in the U.S. and in England before that. It works just fine. It is fair to all concerned. In some areas, like Fort Myers, FL, the courts have created “rocket dockets” that process the huge number of foreclosures quickly. The judge asks, “Are you behind in your mortgage payments?” If the answer is yes, he asks if they are still occupying the house. If they are, he gives them 45 or 60 days to move out.

Next case.

There is no need for Barack Obama to do anything. It will take care of itself as it has for hundreds of years.

Unfair, expensive, bad precedent

Furthermore, for him to take action that lets people who are not making their mortgage payments live rent free in those houses is unjust, extremely expensive to the taxpayers, and sends an extremely bad message to future borrowers and lenders. To the extent that he forces the lenders in question to accept a lesser deal than they get from foreclosure, he is raising the interest rates and tightening the loan standards on all future mortgages because lenders will charge more and lend to fewer marginal would-be homeowners to protect themselves from future Obama confiscations of their loan or part of it.

Make whitey pay black mortgage payments and forgive black mortgage debt

Fundamentally, Obama’s foreclosure program is to have the honest, responsible people who bought a house they could afford and who made all the payments on time—largely white Republicans—pay additional taxes to subsidize dishonest, irresponsible people who are currently squatting in a house in which they have no equity and make no payments—disproportionately black Democrats (pardon my redundancy). That is an outrage. But Americans are afraid to say anything for fear of being called racist.

This is a racist policy aimed mainly at giving free passes to delinquent blacks. It is reparations masked by political rhetoric. Many dishonest, irresponsible whites are also helped by it, but I doubt Obama would be interested if there weren’t so many blacks being foreclosed, or at least he would have chosen a different kind of “solution.”

Opposition to ‘stimulus’ must be racist

Black Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC) says opposition by Southern governors to accepting the “stimulus” is racism against blacks. The governors may oppose it because it forces them to expand welfare-state programs, and agree to other strings, in order to get the “stimulus” money allocated to their state.

At http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/19/clyburngop-governors-reject-stimulus-slap-face-african-americans/, you can read the Fox News story about his statement. In effect, he is agreeing with the idea that Obama is using these various bum’s rush bills to a large extent to help poor blacks and only secondarily to help the nation.

I said many times during the campaign that Obama seemed to be more interested in being the head guy in charge of redressing imagined or ancient black grievances than he seemed to be interested in being the president of current U.S. citizens of all races. I said he needed to run for president of the NAACP, not the USA, if that’s what he is about. I was right.

Now we know what the ‘dialog on race’ is

Obama made a big deal speech about race during the campaign. He said we needed a “dialog on race.” Now we know what his idea of a race “dialog” is: Whites need to shut up and pay up.

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions. If there are any errors or omissions in my facts or logic, please tell me about them. If you are correct, I will fix the item in question. If you wish, I will give you credit. Where appropriate, I will apologize for the error. To date, I have been surprised at how few such corrections I have had to make.