The foreclosure plan carries many of the same drawbacks as the stimulus bill. Both are full of good intentions and comforting provisions for those who find themselves in financial trouble. Both pay lip service to words like "stimulus" and "incentives."
But in the end, both of these headline programs rely on government to make the decisions, to pick the winners and losers, and to subsidize those solutions with money taken from people who aren't in financial trouble -- yet!
It's easy to blame the markets, and the overwhelming greed of those who profited at others' expense. There is simply no way to defend that kind of behavior. It is an example of human nature at its very worst!
An equally dangerous mistake, though, is to decide that the answers lie with government planning, bank nationalization, congressional control over asset allocation and government subsidies to failing industries.
You don't need a long memory to see how that kind of "planned" economy leads to shortages, stagnancy, and black markets. Central planning was tested to death in the old Soviet Union.
Certainly, there must be a middle ground. Somewhere between the ravages of greed and the monstrosity of government control, we must find the path to get the economy growing again.
It won't happen by pitting Americans who saved and paid off their mortgages, or are still paying, against those who were either greedy or unfortunate enough to be caught in this recession. We can't draw a line and say that on one side are "good" Americans and that those on the other side are "bad." And we can't allow government to determine which is which!
Our economic solutions must be tempered with mercy -- and self-interest! Job loss could have happened to someone in your family, through no fault of their own. The statistic of 5 million out of work includes a lot of hardworking, loyal employees who never expected to end up in this spot.
If compassion doesn't move you, then self-interest should. Insisting on foreclosures when well-intentioned homeowners simply can't pay until jobs are restored is a self-defeating solution. The more foreclosure sales, the lower housing prices will fall. That means even those with jobs can't refinance to pay for college or sell a home to fund retirement.
Make no mistake, many of today's problems would solve themselves if the economy could move back to a path of growth:
-- With profitable growth, there would be more demand for workers, less unemployment.
-- With more people employed, there would be more demand for housing.
-- With more income, there would be fewer foreclosures, and home prices would level off and start rising again.