More Foolish Mortgage Bailout Proposals

Bailing out mortgage borrowers is a bad idea that most Americans oppose.  Yet the “Bush administration is finalizing details of a plan,” “backed by public funds,” that would bail out “borrowers who owe their banks more than their homes are worth because of plummeting prices,” by encouraging “lenders to forgive a portion of those loans and issue new, smaller mortgages in exchange for the financial backing of the federal government.”

“The plan is similar to elements in legislation proposed two weeks ago by Barney Frank (D-Mass.),” legislation that is dangerous, costly, and fundamentally unfair, and would both reward irresponsibility and discourage investment and prudent lending.