Thursday, 09 May 2013 06:01

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By Eric T. Schneiderman

Article sponsored by Family Vision Care

President Obama has finally moved to replace a little-known but powerful Washington bureaucrat who has stood in the way of important efforts to end America’s foreclosure crisis. The President’s decision is welcome — but further action is needed, right away, to provide the swift and fair relief homeowners need.

Since 2009, Edward DeMarco has served as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He should have been a critical figure in setting policy to get us out of the foreclosure crisis. Instead, DeMarco’s most notable achievement has been blocking programs to help struggling homeowners.

It has been more than five years since the housing bubble burst, but millions of Americans are still fighting to keep their homes. In the fourth quarter of 2012, 10.4 million properties — 21.5% of all homes with mortgages — had “negative equity,” owing more on their mortgages than their properties were worth. Right now, these homeowners are trapped under a $628 billion mountain of negative equity.

Banks move to foreclose on 250,000 properties each quarter. That’s 2,700 families each day moving one step closer to losing their homes.

Of course, foreclosure is a terrible event in the life of a family. But it isn’t so great for the folks who own the loans, either. It often takes long, expensive legal proceedings to reach resolution, with the prize being a property worth much less than the bank is owed.

In many cases, however, foreclosures can be avoided by simply reducing the amount that homeowners owe. Very modest reductions can often enable families to keep their homes and continue to pay off their loans.

Such “principal writedowns” are a necessary and common-sense tool in the massive repair job that is needed to mend our broken housing market.

But when the White House proposed expanding principal writedowns for Fannie and Freddie-owned mortgages, DeMarco killed the initiative. His obstruction came at great cost to millions of homeowners and to the housing market, generally: According to the Congressional Budget Office, approximately 1.2 million homeowners with Fannie and Freddie mortgages are in need of principal reduction. That’s roughly 40% of all underwater homeowners in the United States.

So why is this man, who was appointed as a Federal Housing Finance Agency deputy director by President George W. Bush, still wielding so much power as head of this important agency?

The answer, like so much of Washington’s dysfunction these days, lies in Congress. Two years ago, Senate Republicans made it clear they would block the confirmation of a new, permanent head of the agency in order to preserve DeMarco’s power and policies.

President Obama’s nomination last week of Rep. Mel Watt as permanent director signals that he’s ready for a confirmation fight that should result in better housing policy. But the outcome of that fight is far from certain. And even if the President succeeds, how long will it take, and how many more homeowners will lose their homes, before Watt takes office?

There is a quicker way to get rid of DeMarco now, and pave the way for a new policy direction for the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He can be replaced as acting director by one of the agency’s three deputy directors — today.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that without a policy change to provide principal reduction for Fannie and Freddie mortgages, an additional 600,000 homeowners will go into default over the next two years.

With a new acting director, the agency can quickly move to stanch the bleeding and bring relief to struggling homeowners. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans would no longer have reason to hold up Watt’s nomination. The President will have taken their leverage away and ensured responsible leadership for the agency.

Last year, I joined 48 other state attorneys general in a national settlement with the five largest private mortgage servicing banks, delivering billions in relief to homeowners at risk of foreclosure by those banks, including billions in mortgage principal reductions.

The 60% of American homeowners who carry loans serviced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need and deserve the same kind of relief. Obama can deliver for these families by removing DeMarco, right now.

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Monday, 06 May 2013 05:57

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Editor's note: This Letter to the Editor was edited for content.  We do not permit subjective personal attacks and these sentences were removed from the letter.  It is generally not our policy to comment on what other publications do or don't do however we fully support freedom of speech.

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by Ray Sweeney

The newspapers in this county continues their downward decline and I have now bought and paid for my last issue of the Rockland County Times.  This comes on the heels of my Journal News cancellation in January because of their decision to endanger the public by publishing the gun owners map.  Besides the Journal News is really just a Westchester paper hiding on the other side of the Hudson.

I want local news and information not smear campaigns.  I don't know LaCorte and I have never met him but Rockland's self-proclaimed official newspaper has never had anything good to say about him and seems to dig deep to rake the muck.  Why I wonder, are people so afraid of LaCorte?  Is it because he might possibly upset the county apple cart?

LaCorte sent the spy text and it was wrong embarrassing and not smart.  It was sent to one person only and yet it ended up on the front page of Rockland's official tabloid.  No mention of course of the fact that someone with access to the text had to have purposely "leaked" the text to the Rockland County Times.  Not a shred of leadership shown on the part of the recipient.  The other candidates piled on.

The story about the "Pervy" fundraiser held by the young democrats was uncalled for, was mean spirited against Joseph Coe, a young man who works tirelessly for others in this county and was another attack on the LGBT community.  And you call it news?

On the topic of gun control, The editor of the RCT even implied on the radio that a member of the Ramapo Town Council stated that LaCorte, if he had a gun, would shoot somebody.

There is plenty to dig into in Ramapo but the powers that be at the official county paper refuse to even scrape the surface.  I'm not a reporter but I can point them in the right directions here they will find drug, alcohol, adultery, corruption and plenty of other scandals.

Where then did the RCT get the tip to dig into LaCorte's background?  Will we see an exposé on any other candidate?

How about Schoenberger? In my opinion this politician has been pulling the strings across the county for years and is a big reason why the county is in the financial mess it's in.  With the bloc vote behind him, he feeds them, they keep him in office.  No mention on this damaging relationship anywhere in the official paper.

I don't know anything about the fourth democrat in the race Vladimir Leon but apparently RCT doesn't feel the need to investigate him.

How about the Hardware Hardball story? Somebody is angry because competition is moving into a blighted area?  My guess is that Marcello's must be angry with every other restaurant in the village that came after him and the beauty parlor a must get angry when  new one opens up.

I stumbled on the Rockland County Star by accident and a friend told me about Ramapo Times.  You are the last hope in this county to get it right and to avoid inserting your own agenda into the middle of the political situation.  I admire your mission and support your effort to do the right thing.  Don't screw it up because many of the people in this county have been burned by the biased newspapers already.

Things are changing.  I will now longer read the print papers, Im now reading my local news online and I may have to vote for a Republican for the first time ever.

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