Congress Could Learn from Jurassic Park
The utter lack of common sense among our Congressmen is truly astonishing. It’s a wonder the country didn’t fall apart ages ago. For example, take the Foreclosure Rescue Bill which cleared a key Senate hurdle by a whopping 83 to 9 vote, virtually assuring Senate passage later this week.
The AP reports that this plan:
“would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.”
Let’s think this through. The home mortgage market is now in trouble because banks and lenders over-extended themselves by offering mortgages to people who were bad risks and are now defaulting. So the government — our Congress — is going to remedy the situation by giving new mortgages to the very same people who are “considered too financially risky to qualify” for the typical government-insured, fixed rate loans. And they are going to risk $300 billion in the process.
Is that DejaVu I’m experiencing …
But let’s be fair and see what supporters are saying about this legislation. According to Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd:
“We need to demonstrate to people in this country that have lost an awful lot of faith in almost everything, but certainly in (Congress), that we can get something done, that we can put aside differences and make a difference in their lives.”
So Dodd proposes demonstrating the exceptionally poor math skills of our Congressmen as a way to instill a renewed confidence in the very people who took on risky loans in the first place. This is so backwards. Those corporations who gave out and the people who received risky loans should be busting their tail to prove they can handle the financial responsibilities that come with mortgages.
I think Senator Dodd could take a lesson from the film Jurassic Park. You may recall that Jeff Goldblum’s character Dr. Ian Malcom said, ” your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
In other words, just because we can do a thing doesn’t mean we should do a thing.
To read the full AP Story, source of the image above.
25 Jun 2008 01:05 am Challen 0 comments