The Influence Game: Banks shift bankruptcy tactics - To Water Down Obama's Homeowner Saving Bill

The Influence Game: Banks shift bankruptcy tactics - To Water Down Obama's Homeowner Saving Bill

www.huffingtonpost.com

Big banks, scrambling to prevent the government from forcing them to rewrite mortgages for struggling homeowners, are using their lobbying clout to press the Obama administration and Congress to scale back a key measure to rescue borrowers from foreclosures.

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Of course, the Banks want to have all the billions come to them, but they don't want the homeowner saved from them.
Gosh forbid the individual homeowner is helped with all the billions going out the door of CONgress.

The legislation, expected to pass the House on Thursday, would let bankruptcy judges reduce the principal and interest rate on a home loan. That essentially would require mortgage companies to let debt-strapped homeowners reduce their monthly payments rather than lose their main residences.

Obama called for it last week as part of his housing rescue plan. Democrats and consumer advocates regard it as crucial to slowing the rapid rate of foreclosures.

But the mortgage industry contends the measure will impose steep and unpredictable costs on its companies, which will be forced to pass them along to borrowers in the form of higher fees and interest rates. The industry spent millions last year on a successful lobbying effort to kill the bill, which almost all Republicans oppose. Opponents call it the "cram-down."

I would bet the banks will win, because they of course give the CONgress money.

Other banks have changed their strategy, but not their position. They are continuing efforts to squash the legislation, but also have stepped up their bid to gut key provisions. Among their goals: restrict the measure to certain kinds or sizes of home loans, certain borrowers, or situations where the mortgage holder _ known as the loan servicer _ agrees to the changes.

"I don't see a scenario where we can ever support this, but we're trying to make it the least-worst way to do the wrong thing," said Scott Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, a trade group representing large banks. The group spent $7.8 million last year lobbying on this and other issues. "There are efforts being made to change the bill right now," Talbott said Wednesday, as Democratic leaders were putting the last touches on the measure to be voted on Thursday.

So who here wants to bet, that the actual American public will not be helped and the bill will get so watered down, it will be useless?

"We continue to be opposed to the bill and that hasn't changed, but we do live in the real world, and we do understand that this is very likely to happen, and we owe it to our members to recognize that reality and to limit the damage as much as possible," said Francis Creighton, a lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers Association, which spent $4.2 million on lobbying last year. "We're encouraged by the fact that the bill is moving to limit the damage of cram-down rather than make it worse."

In the bankers eyes, they should be the only one to get ALL the money to give away as bonuses and live better!









www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Dontcha just love these guys?

Someone should tell them that trickle down economics only works if you actually let the money trickle down.

:pah:

EVENTUALLY maybe the government will understand you solve problems from the GROUND UP and not the other way around.