Obama's housing plan will cost $275 billion

Obama's housing plan will cost $275 billion in taxpayer dollars. He is spending $75 billion for direct support to distressed homeowners and $200 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This money is in addition to the $700 billion in TARP program money already committed. This amount is far greater then the $50 billion first reported. Most Americans want to be sympathetic to homeowners facing foreclosure. If the reason is loss of employment due to the recession, many would support some form assistance. The truth is many of these homeowners bought houses they could not afford in overpriced markets. They were hoping the property values would keep climbing and they could make a killing. They made a poor financial decision. Now, Obama wants those of us who bought more modest housing to help pay for the speculators mistake. There is something fundamentally wrong in this plan. People who watch their budgets and make sound decisions should not have to pay for the mistakes of spendthrifts. This is socialism for the upper middle class.

$275 Billion Plan Seeks to Address Housing Crisis
Joshua Lott for The New York Times

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By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: February 18, 2009

MESA, Ariz. — President Obama announced a plan on Wednesday to help as many as nine million American homeowners refinance their mortgages or avert foreclosure, saying that it would shore up housing prices, stabilize neighborhoods and slow a downward spiral that was “unraveling homeownership, the middle class and the American Dream itself.”


Speaking in Mesa, Ariz., President Obama said that the housing bailout would “prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy.”
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The plan, which was more ambitious and expensive than many housing analysts had expected, drew praise from consumer advocates as well as the financial industry.

It could ultimately cost taxpayers as much as $275 billion — $75 billion in direct spending to keep people in their homes and the rest in additional financial backing for the government-controlled mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (excerpted) read more at nytimes.com