Redstate

By Shoebox Posted in Archived — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

House Democrats are working to pass a "Housing rescue package." The main provisions of the bill are similar to those that have been reported for the past few months including:

• Giving the Federal Housing Administration $300 billion in new lending authority and the ability to relax its standards to rewrite existing loans.
• Permanently increase the size of loans the FHA, Freddie MAC and Fannie MAE can insure to $729,750 in high cost areas.
• An assortment of "money dumps" to local and state governments that ostensibly help them with low income, first time home buyers and blighted neighborhoods.

I won't carry on about why this bill is bad policy except to refrain the words "bail out" and remind Nancy Pelosi that a majority Americans do not want this legislation. President Bush has said he will veto the bill.

No, I won't carry on about BAIL OUT but there was one provision in the bill that I found particularly appalling coming from the Democrats (sorry for the redundancy):

To ensure that lenders participate and support the bill the Democrats have added a provision that creates a safe harbor from investor lawsuits for mortgage holders who modify loans to borrowers who are in default or about to default.

So the Dems want to grant immunity for legal issues to the companies that comply with the desires of Congress. Hey, wait a minute. That sounds a lot like granting of immunity for the telephone companies that comply with FISA! Isn't that immunity issue the major sticking point with reenacting FISA?

Are Pelosi and company telling us that they believe it is more important to bail out people who made poor individual choices than to allow intelligence practices that have been essential in providing national security?

John McCain originally said that he opposed any housing bailout. I know he is strongly supportive of FISA. The blatant hypocrisy over corporate immunity would be a great opportunity for McCain to draw a bright line of separation so voters can see which party will actually do something about national security and which is just pandering.