President Obama announced his housing plan to avoid foreclosure of homeowners who are currently paying their mortgage but are not likely to be able to do so for long through little fault of their own. The program is also designed to stop foreclosure on homeowners who could afford a lower payment if they could get their mortgage refinanced at current market interest rates. The Obama housing plan is known as the Homeowner Affordability and Stability plan and is estimated to help 7 to 9 million people at a total cost of $275 billion.

Unlike current programs to prevent foreclosure, the Obama housing plan doesn’t require that the homeowner be behind on their payments to enter the program. And for homeowners qualifying under the foreclosure plan, the federal government also will make payments of up to $1,000 a year for five years toward the homeowner. That’s a $5,000 reduction in the principal of a mortgage for simply making your mortgage payment on time every month for the next five years!

For the Americans who have already received a foreclosure notice, and the millions of additional families who are struggling to make their mortgage payments and save their home from foreclosure, the announcement of President Barack Obama’s foreclosure mitigation plan today will either go down in history as the first step in the solution to the housing crisis in the United States, or one more ineffective policy announcement from a federal government which can’t seem to stop foreclosure and arrest declining property values.

Less than a month into his presidency, Obama has been busy. He’s already signed a $787 billion economic stimulus package and set forth his plan for financial stability in the nation’s banking institutions. But the announcement of his housing solution today shows that he understands that he doesn’t have the time to celebrate his victories. The nation is facing rapidly increasing unemployment, a growing national budget deficit, trouble among America’s banks, a bankrupt auto industry, and declining real estate prices.

President Barack Obama escaped to Chicago for this past Valentine’s Day weekend. According to news reports, the President played a little basketball, got a haircut from his favorite barber, and took his wife out to Valentine’s Day dinner. Following Congressional passage of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan and with the auto bailout debate to look forward to this week, his need for a little vacation is understandable.

My burning question about his trip is this: Did he fly commercial?

Loyal readers may have noticed that I haven’t yet done my review of government and lender mortgage modification programs.  It’s not that I haven’t been thinking of issues related to foreclosures.  It’s simply that I’ve been too busy to sit down and put the work into the post that the topic deserves.  I hope to [...]

President Barack Obama promised on his weekly radio and internet address Saturday that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would soon announce a new plan to lower mortgage costs, extend loans to small business to create jobs, and revive the financial system to get credit flowing again.
During the bank bailout debates in September and October of this [...]

The new White House website has President Barack Obama’s agenda.  I took a few minutes to peruse it and didn’t see bankruptcy reform or debt relief among the major issues listed.  So I did a bit of digging, and here’s what I found.
From the overview of the page on family, it says Obama will “reform [...]

Today was a busy day for economic news.  President-elect Barack Obama announced his economic stimulus plan, Wal-Mart decreased its earnings outlook after weaker than expected holiday sales, the Labor Department released data that almost half a million more Americans joined the unemployment line last week, and consumer borrowing fell a record $7.9 billion in November [...]

The Democratic Convention is slated to begin this week in Denver and I’m already disappointed about Democratic Presidential Nominee Senator Barack Obama’s choice for his Vice Presidential Candidate - Senator Joseph (Joe) Biden from Delaware.
Delaware is the state of incorporation for most large corporations in the United States because of the perception (whether real or [...]

From what I have read, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama likes to proclaim that he is free from the influence of big businesses.  But Obama is in debt to credit card companies for much of his fundraising success, and the cost of processing those credit card donations over the internet is surprisingly high.
In May, I [...]

Barack Obama called for revisions to the Republican-led bankruptcy reforms passed in 2005.  The proposal focused on assisting individuals declaring bankruptcy due to debts related to health care/medical procedures, military personnel and their families facing debt due to extended deployment, frequent moves, or predatory lending, and protecting the elderly against losing their home in bankruptcy.  [...]