President Bush has expressed criticism of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which is currently being considered by the Senate (see ‘The Senate Gets Serious?’), and indicated he would not sign the bill as it stands.
‘The Senate defeated an attempt to include what we call a bankruptcy cramdown provision in its bill, and it included some of the president's provisions, like FHA modernization, which we've been calling for for a couple of years, and an expansion of mortgage revenue bonds,’ states a press briefing from White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. ‘In the end, it appears that the Senate versions of even those proposals, because of changes that they made to it, raise concerns here. And therefore, this is not a bill that we could support.’
‘The bill will likely do more harm than good by bailing out lenders and speculators, and passing on costs to other Americans who play by the rules and honor their mortgage debt obligations,’ Perino adds. ‘In addition to the concerns with how the Senate treated the provisions we do like, the bill still retains many other provisions that we don't like – provisions like the plan to fund purchases of foreclosed properties and a tax credit idea.’
