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| Frank: Foreclosure fund may fall short |
| 2009-02-14 |
| Three days after Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced a $50 billion program to prevent home foreclosures, a powerful Democratic congressman who is deeply involved in the housing crisis suggested that $50 billion might prove to be just a down payment for a larger taxpayer-funded program. "We may need more than $50 billion for foreclosure [mitigation]," Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters Friday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. If there is not a high re-default rate after the $50 billion is injected into Treasury's homeowner bailout plan, the government should consider spending more money to fund the plan, the Massachusetts Democrat said. Mr. Frank said deteriorating home prices were a major cause of the plunging value of mortgage-related assets, which have blown huge holes in the balance sheets of many of the world's largest banks. And foreclosure mitigation is the best way to slow down home-price depreciation, he argued. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2009-02-14 11:24 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: WTF 2009-02-14 08:44 |