The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.
Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.
“It is the mother of all bailouts,” said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, who is now a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry.
President Bush tried to address this problem but the Democrats blocked him….sad….
Actually the total unfunded Government debt is about 130 Trillion according to Kevin Williamson. That’s the combined Federal, State and Local governments plus Social Security and Medicare.
[blockquote]The debt numbers start to get really hairy when you add in liabilities under Social Security and Medicare — in other words, when you account for the present value of those future payments in the same way that businesses have to account for the obligations they incur. Start with the entitlements and those numbers get run-for-the-hills ugly in a hurry: a combined $106 trillion in liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, or more than five times the total federal, state, and local debt we’ve totaled up so far. In real terms, what that means is that we’d need $106 trillion in real, investable capital, earning 6 percent a year, on hand, today, to meet the obligations we have under those entitlement programs. For perspective, that’s about twice the total private net worth of the United States. (A little more, in fact.)[/blockquote]
http://article.nationalreview.com/436123/the-other-national-debt/kevin-williamson?page=3
Oh, and did I mention that the Government wants to increase the debt with another pork barrel spending plan touted as a stimulus package.
This is what happens when we elect representatives based on our pocketbook issues; it destroys government and in the end also destroys our pocketbooks.
Abe Lincoln was derided as honest Abe, the logsplitter, but people thought it more wise at that time to elect an honest logsplitter to be president than a moderate progressive who tried to please everyone.
Where is such wisdom today?
Don
A ‘bad mortgage’ is a bad mortgage and a borrower who is a ‘bad risk’ will most likely adhere to his ‘track record’ and remain a bad risk.
So why should the under-40-years-of-age-crowd and future tax paying generations be encumbered with ‘today’s’ bad mortgages and bad risks?
“So why should the under-40-years-of-age-crowd and future tax paying generations be encumbered with ‘today’s’ bad mortgages and bad risks?”
Um, because they voted for Obama?
“Um, because they voted for Obama?” Oh, I see, we punish our children because they tended to blindly/emotionally vote for Obama.
This is sort-of-like sending them and their grandchildren to debtor’s prison for life for making a single decision in a single election.
Politics, like gravity, is fairly unforgiving.
Poetic justice. Hoisted by their own petard.
November 2010 is only a little over 5 months away! Vote out the Left. Vote out the “Right” RINOs. Vote for conservative candidates and hold on for some short term pain…then, maybe, we might have a chance to survive this as an intact nation.