Ginger Swartz, Boulder City

Tue, May 6, 2008 (2:03 a.m.)

Congress is considering financial assistance for home mortgage holders, who, for one reason or another, have slipped into foreclosure. This assistance is intended only for primary residences and supposedly would not apply to investors holding more than one residential mortgage.

Nationally, 2.04 percent of residential mortgage loans are in foreclosure. The question is: Why should the U.S. government expend taxpayer dollars to bail out this small group while the remaining 97.96 percent of home mortgage holders (many of whom are barely surviving in difficult to impossible financial situations) keep faithfully paying on their loans? Why should they keep paying in addition to taking a tax “hit” for the nonpayers?

What’s to keep others from defaulting in order to get in line for the government payoff? Why not give money to all taxpayers holding mortgages of less than, say, $750,000 and “cram” everyone’s mortgage down to a more reasonable level?

The federal government is living on fiat money anyway, so there must be plenty to go around ... just print more, right?