Obama Housing Plan ‘Aims Straight at the Heartland’
 |
|
As many as 9 million homeowners who are facing foreclosure or struggling with skyrocketing monthly mortgage payments could save their homes under the terms of a home rescue plan President Obama unveiled yesterday.
When the Bush economy began to tank more than a year ago with banks failing and jobs vanishing, foreclosure signs and abandoned houses began sprouting in working and middle class and even up-scale neighborhoods around the nation. The AFL-CIO first called for a homeowners’ lifeline in late 2007. But the Bush administration preferred to bailout Wall Street instead of throwing a lifeline to Main Street. Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:
The swift action by the Obama administration to address the housing crisis is a welcome and refreshing change.
For more than a year, the Bush administration ignored calls from the AFL-CIO and others to address a coming foreclosure tsunami. Tragically, in the months that followed, the deepening housing debacle turned millions of families’ lives upside down and strengthened its chokehold on our economy
Grim State Budgets Could Mean $100 Billion Shortfall
 |
|
The nation’s crashing economy and deepening recession is slamming states. A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reveals that 43 states are, or will soon be, facing serious budget shortfalls, forcing them to cut vital services, lay off workers, deplete reserves or raise taxes. With this fiscal year only half over:
The outlook for state budgets remains grim. Over half the states had already cut spending, used reserves, or raised revenues in order to adopt a balanced budget for the current fiscal year—which started July 1 in most states. Now, their budgets have fallen out of balance again….And these problems are expected to continue into next year.
The CBPP study, State Budget Troubles Worsen, shows that economic indicators predict that the current recession will be far more severe that the 2001 recession where unemployment topped out at 6.3 percent. Today, it already has hit 6.7 percent and
many economists expect it to rise much further, which will reduce state income taxes and increase demand for Medicaid and other services.
