Las Vegas Sun

November 22, 2009

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Letter to the Editor:

Mortgage bailout unfair to majority

Ginger Swartz, Boulder City

Tuesday, 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?

Discussion: 2 comments so far…

  1. By Teaser
    5/6/08 at 1:40 p.m.
    Suggest removal

    I concur, and I will take this one step further. I just went into Chpt. 13 bankruptcy because I overstepped my limits. I blame no one but myself. I take responsibility and will be paying back plenty. (Trust me, the new laws are pretty intense.) As for my house, well, I owe a lot more than it's worth right now. But instead of walking away, I will continue to do the right thing and pay on it. We should not be bailing people out. If they messed up, there are legal options available to them right now. They should bit the bullet the same as many of us who are copping to our bad behavior.

  2. By perry161492
    6/8/08 at 12:23 p.m.
    Suggest removal

    not me i will file chapter 7 at the end of year

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