In Los Angeles that'll be "in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, enclosed are your Subway coupons. We thank you for your business, and wish you a prosperous, diabetes-free life." http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-fastfood23-2008jul23,0,7844930.story
Took a bit of search time but I now understand the comment. As long as Senate approved the House version of the bill. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-housing-taxcredit,0,5433998.story And this the last paragraph from todays article in NYTimes "There is also an array of items buried deep in the legislation, and the implications of some of them is not yet clear. There are provisions, for example, that grant or extend Section 8 federal housing subsidy eligibility to residents of specific properties in Malden, Mass., and San Francisco. And there is a provision tailored narrowly for Chrysler to ensure that it can benefit from a corporate tax incentive even though the company is now structured as a partnership not a corporation." Why are these destails being buried? Why aren't Oreily, Dobbs, Drudge, and the like all over this for the Sunday audience?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/26/national/main4296808.shtml The legislation overhauls the Depression-era FHA. It requires lenders to show how high a borrower's payment could get under the terms of his mortgage. It provides $180 million in pre-foreclosure counseling for struggling homeowners. The Treasury Department gains unlimited power, until the end of 2009, to lend money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or buy their stock should they need it. The Federal Reserve takes on a new "consultative" role overseeing the companies. The measure includes $15 billion in tax cuts, including a significant expansion of the low-income housing tax credit and a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers for houses purchased between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009. Democratic leaders, recognizing that the measure could be one of the last items to become law during what's left of their abbreviated election-year schedule, tacked on an $800 billion increase, to $10.6 trillion, in the statutory limit on the national debt. Provisions Of The Bill H.R. 3221 would: # Give the Federal Housing Administration $300 billion in new lending authority and relax standards to provide affordable, fixed-rate mortgages to an estimated 400,000 debt-ridden homeowners. Any losses would be covered by an affordable housing fund financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that finance mortgages. # Allow the Treasury Department temporary authority to lend money to Fannie and Freddie or buy their stock to avert a collapse of one or both of the mortgage giants. The authority would expire on Dec. 31, 2009. # Create a new regulator and tighten controls on Fannie and Freddie, including power for the regulator to approve pay packages for company executives. Create a new affordable housing fund drawn from their profits. Permanently raise the limit on the loans they may buy to $625,000 in the highest-cost areas. Allow them to buy loans 15 percent higher than the median home price in certain cities. # Provide $3.9 billion in grants to the hardest-hit communities for buying and fixing up foreclosed property. # Modernize the FHA and allow it to back loans for riskier borrowers. Permanently increase the size of loans the agency may insure - currently set to revert to $362,790 by the end of the year - to $625,000 in the highest-cost areas. The agency could insure loans 15 percent higher than the median home price in certain cities. # Forbid the FHA from insuring mortgages in which the borrower's down payment is paid by the seller, beginning on Oct. 1, 2008. Place a one-year moratorium forbidding the agency from charging premiums based on the riskiness of the homeowner, until Oct. 1, 2009. # Provide $15 billion in housing tax breaks, including for low-income housing. Give a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers who purchase residences between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009. Allow people who don't itemize their taxes to claim a $500-$1,000 deduction on their 2008 property taxes. # Give states an additional $11 billion in tax-free municipal bond authority for low-interest loans to first-time home buyers, construction of low-income rental housing and refinancing subprime mortgages. # Offer protection from investor lawsuits for mortgage holders that modify loans to borrowers who are in default or about to default. # Provide $180 million for pre-foreclosure counseling and legal services for distressed borrowers.
well matt, o-rielly and the others are nothing but govt. propaganda mouth pieces. What interests me most is to find out who exactly owns such special properties that require a congressional bill. "Section 8 federal housing subsidy eligibility to residents of specific properties in Malden, Mass., and San Francisco."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/07/28/cnusecon128.xml Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Congress backs rescue package By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 1:56am BST 28/07/2008 World markets are poised for a major relief rally today after the US Congress met in a rare weekend session to pass the most far-reaching rescue package for America's financial system since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The emergency bail-out gives the US Treasury sweeping authority to inject capital into the giant mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together own or guarantee half the country's $12 trillion stock of home loans. The ceiling on the US national debt has been lifted by a further $800bn, giving the Treasury almost unlimited resources to prop up the two lenders. In parallel, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) is to guarantee up to $300bn of fresh mortgages for struggling homeowners trapped with soaring loan costs, often the result of "honeytrap" contracts. The scheme aims to avoid an avalanche of fresh defaults as the housing market continues to deteriorate. Over 740,000 homes fell into foreclosure in the second quarter. The new bill - reluctantly endorsed yesterday by the White House despite lashings of lard for Democratic special interests - should help to calm the markets after wild gyrations last week. Global bourses have suffered the worst mid-summer sell-off since the early 1930s. The share prices of Fannie and Freddie, the world's two biggest financial institutions, have dropped by almost 85pc. The rating agency Standard & Poor's said it may downgrade a $19bn chunk of subordinated debt issued by two agencies despite the Treasury plan, citing "heightened financial risks". This raises implicit concerns about the credit worthiness of the United States itself, though S&P denies any plan to cut the US sovereign rating at this stage. Hank Paulson, the US treasury secretary, brushed aside complaints that the rescue package amounts to a taxpayer bail-out for shareholders, insisting that the new authority to buy stock is merely intended to reassure investors and may never be activated if all goes well. The authority expires at the end of 2009. A vocal minority on Capitol Hill now fears that the US government is shielding Wall Street from the consequences of its own folly. The risk of default has been taken over by society as a whole, while investors alone stand to gain from any recovery. "This bill has moral hazard written all over it: we are letting a monster loose," said Jeff Flake, a Republican Congressman. The majority of President George W Bush's own party voted against the package in the House. A new regulator will take charge of Fannie and Freddie, but this addition has the look of an afterthought. Critics say Washington should have adopted the sterner methods of Norwegian and Swedish regulators during the Scandinavian banking crisis of the early 1990s, when shareholders received nothing after the banks were seized. Mr Paulson is concerned that such Draconian methods could aggravate the crisis by making it harder for US banks to attract fresh capital. The financial system remains extremely fragile. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) intervened late on Friday to take over two more bankrupt lenders, First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank. It follows the seizure of California's IndyMac two weeks ago. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, said the new package was vitally needed. "We are in the midst of the most serious economic crisis to face our nation in many years. This bill is going to make a difference almost immediately," he said. Paul Ashworth, US strategist at Capital Economics, said US bank credit had been contracting for the last quarter. While the fiscal stimulus package helped to keep the economy afloat in the second quarter, this one-off boost is now largely exhausted. "The economy is likely to slide into a more severe recession during the rest of the year as the credit crunch gradually begins to have a more pronounced impact on the economy," he said. Some 400,000 homeowners are expected to benefit from the FHA's new mortgage facility, which is confined to those trying keep up with their payments. This is a small proportion of the estimated 11m American households now facing negative equity, a figure that is certain to rise much further as house prices deflate. The overhang of unsold houses on the market has reached 11.1 months supply. BNP Paribas said the new danger is that banks in other parts of the world will soon find themselves in similar difficulties as the long-term effects of the credit crunch bite deeper. "The epicentre of the financial market sell-off will switch from the US into Europe and Oceania. Most of Euroland has entered a recession. A synchronised global downturn is on the agenda," it said. Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright
Only 3 out of the 230 House Democrats voting voted against H.R. 3221. Oh yeah, I can see some real deficit reduction happening in the next 4 years. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll519.xml