Gay Marriage, Mortgages, Medical Coverage
owa struck down its gay marriage ban today, although it probably won’t last long. The decision is already being appealed, and there’s a lawyer seeking a stay, preventing gay couples from filing for licenses until the appeal is decided. Until the stay goes through, however, there’s a flood of gay couples hitting the courthouses, getting licenses. More power to ‘em, I say. I just don’t see what’s wrong with gay people getting married. It doesn’t hurt anyone. Let ‘em do it.
Additionally, I’d like to point out that since we apparently need to make laws which make it illegal for gay couples to marry, logic dictates that it must be legal for them to marry in any place which has no such law. Right? Just tossing that one out there.
I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing. — President Bush today unveiled a series of measures intended to help ease a wave of mortgage defaults, but he ruled out any federal bailout for lenders or for homeowners who bought properties they could not afford. In a brief speech in the White House Rose Garden, Bush urged lenders to “work with homeowners to adjust their mortgages” if homeowners run into difficulties making payments. He also outlined steps to modernize the Federal Housing Administration, allow homeowners to refinance into FHA-insured mortgages with lower rates, temporarily reform a key housing provision of the federal tax code and launch a new “foreclosure avoidance initiative.”
I know very little about mortgage rates, lending processes, etc and so forth. Would anyone else care to chime in? Since it’s Bush doing it, I’m inclined to believe it must be a bad thing, but you never know. “Stopped clock right twice a day” and all.
And, just to underscore the issue of Bush being a big dumbass, he’s trying to sneak through some new regulations to prevent the expansion of “CHIP”, the medical coverage for kids. Ideologues against insuring children:
”We had zero forewarning,” said New Jersey’s Jon Corzine. “It was sprung at 7:30 on a Friday night in the middle of August, the time when it would draw the least fire.”
He was talking about the Bush administration’s latest effort to thwart the expansion of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program. Governors in several states are trying to include more youngsters from the lower rungs of the middle class and have vowed to fight the president on this issue.
Acting during a congressional recess, and making a distinct effort to stay beneath the radar of the news media, the administration enacted insidious new rules that make it much harder for states to bring additional children under the umbrella of the program, known colloquially as CHIP. The program is popular because it works. It’s cost effective and there is wide bipartisan support for its expansion.
(Photo credit: Here.)
September 1st, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Bush’s idea sounds like a good one. The problem I see is that little note: the bailout is not for lenders or buyers who bought homes they could not afford. In the first place banks lend based on income to debt ratio. If you don’t make enough to pay all your bills you don’t get the loan. Now that being said, another problem I see is where will the line be drawn? What if a homeowner was hurt, or lost their job, then making them one of the ones who bought what they could not afford?
Also, as far as Larry Craig, just my opinion, who cares? I think it is being blown way out of proportion, or is it being used as a cover for something else that we will find out about after it’s too late to do anything about it?
Love ya lots…MOM
JavaElemental Reply:
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Like I said, I don’t know very much about the “mortgage crisis”, but I do know that part of the problem has to do with “sub-prime loans”, where banks lent money to people who couldn’t actually afford it, and part of it has to do with people choosing variable-rate mortgages over fixed rate. (Which, for anyone else out there reading this, is just foolish. Always go fixed-rate. Variable-rate is like gambling, only the odds are never in your favor.) Part of the problem is, too, that banks make investments based on loan money coming in — money they don’t actually have, mind you, just that they expect to have — and then when people default on their loans, the banks are left screwed six ways to Sunday. Which is what they deserve for talking people into taking out too big of loans at variable interest rates, and other predatory practices.
The upshot being that the only way to fix the problem may well be the big government bail-outs that Bush doesn’t want to use. Kind of like they had to do for the savings & loan thing. Of course, I could also be talking completely out of my butt because I’ve misunderstood something. Heh.
As for Craig — I’m just boggled by how much stupid one man can manage to create.