I didn't make it over to the Obama visit to the College of Southern Nevada, but it is real cheap and easy for me to publish the press release the campaign sent out on Nor'Town foreclosures because it's all about North Las Vegas. McLame was off to visit the Renoids:
Obama Outlines Plan to
Address Housing Crisis in
North Las
Vegas
As
President, Obama will crack down on lenders and provide assistance for families
facing the threat of foreclosure
Nevada-specific
fact sheet and prepared remarks included
below
NORTH LAS
VEGAS,
NV —Senator Barack Obama visited
North Las Vegas today for a
town hall discussion on protecting homeownership. Joined by about 75 Nevadans
affected by the housing crisis, Obama outlined his plan to tackle predatory
lending and help
Nevada homeowners pay their mortgages and
fight foreclosure. Among other steps, Obama has called for penalizing predatory
lenders and using those revenues to immediately create a $10 billion Foreclosure
Prevention Fund, and giving a tax credit to middle class homeowners that would
cover 10 percent of their mortgage interest every year.
Prior to the event, Obama met with
Felicitas Rosel and Francisco Cano, two
Las Vegas homeowners who are fighting
foreclosure as the result of a predatory home loan.
“Because a lender went for the easy buck, they are left
struggling with ballooning interest rates and monthly mortgage payments,”
Senator Obama said. “Because Washington has failed working people in this
country, they are facing foreclosure, and the American Dream they sought for
decades risks slipping away…We can’t afford another President who can’t be
bothered to stand up for working people. It’s time for change. It’s time that
Washington went to work for working people.”
As President, Obama
will:
Ø Support the Dodd/Frank proposal to create a new FHA Housing
Security Program to provide incentives for lenders to buy or refinance existing
mortgages and make them stable 30-year fixed
mortgages;
Ø Make an additional $10 billion in bonds available to help
middle class families buy their first home or avoid foreclosure;
Ø Give a tax credit to middle class homeowners that would
cover 10 percent of the interest on their mortgages every year;
Ø Mandate accurate loan disclosure to ensure consumers fully
understand their loan agreements;
Ø Penalize predatory lenders and use those fines to help
families stay in their homes;
Ø Eliminate income tax for seniors making less than $50,000
per year;
Ø And implement a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $1,000 per
family or $500 per worker.
A Nevada-specific fact sheet on Senator
Obama’s plan to help homeowners is available HERE.
Senator Obama’s remarks in
North Las Vegas follow as prepared for delivery.
Remarks of Senator Barack
Obama
North Las
Vegas,
NV
May 27,
2008
I just had the privilege of visiting with Felicitas
Rosel and Francisco Cano at their home here in
Las Vegas .
Today, John McCain is having a different kind of
meeting. He’s holding a fundraiser with George Bush behind closed doors in
Arizona . No
cameras. No reporters. And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn’t want to be
seen, hat-in-hand, with the President whose failed policies he promises to
continue for another four years.
But the question for the American people is: do we want to continue George Bush’s policies?
Because I don’t think the American people want to
continue the disastrous economic policies that have helped create catastrophes
like the housing crisis that we’re here to discuss today.
I don’t think we want to continue a misguided foreign
policy and an endless war in
Iraq that has cost us thousands of
lives and hundreds of billions of dollars while making us less safe and less
secure.
That’s the choice in this election. On issue after
issue, John McCain is offering more of the same policies that have failed for
the last eight years. That’s the agenda that he and the President are raising
money to support later today. But I’m here in
Nevada because we know it’s time to turn the
page.
Here, in
Nevada , we see how so many people are fighting
for their American Dream. Because in so many ways, Felicitas and Francisco have
lived the American Dream. Their story is not one of great wealth or privilege.
Instead, it embodies the steady pursuit of simple dreams that has built this
country from the bottom up.
Felicitas came to
Las
Vegas from
Arizona . Francisco came from
Mexico .
And together, in this city of dreams, they built a life founded on hard work and
family; patience and perseverance. For two decades, they raised four daughters
on a modest but dependable wage – thanks in part to their ability to organize
with other workers in the Culinary Union. Today, she works as a maid –and he
works as a porter – in the Bellagio, down on the
strip.
Like so many working people, their lives
have been
shaped by sacrifice for their children’s future – the promise that each
generation has the ability to reach a little further. And theirs have
been lives lived rent check to rent check, with the promise of a home
sought through
the little savings that they could put aside week after week, month
after month,
year after year. Finally, three years ago, they were able to reach that
destination in their pursuit of the American Dream. After so much hard
work,
Felicitas and Francisco were able to move into a home of their own.
Yet a predatory loan has turned this source of stability
into an anchor of insecurity. Because a lender went for the easy buck, they are
left struggling with ballooning interest rates and monthly mortgage payments.
Because
Washington has failed working people in this
country, they are facing foreclosure, and the American Dream they sought for
decades risks slipping away.
Sadly – shamefully – their story is one that is found
across the
United
States . Over two million families are facing
foreclosure. Here in
Nevada , the foreclosure rate is over three and
a half times the national average. Here in
Las Vegas , one out of every 44 households is
facing foreclosure.
As so many Americans walk away from their homes,
millions more have seen their home values plunge, which only puts our economy
into a deeper hole.
The foreclosure crisis has played out in painfully
steady but predictable motion. While lenders were taking advantage of folks like
Felicitas and Francisco, they were also spending hundreds of millions of dollars
lobbying
Washington to stay on the sidelines. For
President Bush, the answer was to do nothing until the pain out on
Main Street trickled
up to Wall Street. Then, a few months ago, he rolled out a plan that was too
little, too late. Instead of offering meaningful relief, he warned against doing
too much. His main proposal for an economy that is leaving working people behind
is to give more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, even though they don’t
need them and didn’t ask for them.
Now I know that John McCain doesn’t like to talk about
the economy. Earlier in the campaign, he admitted that, “the issue of economics
is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” Apparently, that hasn’t
changed, since his plan amounts to little more than borrowing bad ideas from
George Bush.
For months, John McCain struggled to come up with a real
plan to address the housing crisis, even as millions of Americans faced the
nightmare of not being able to pay next month’s bills. It took him three tries
to come up with answers for struggling homeowners, and he still came up short.
And Senator McCain is so out of touch with the struggles of working people that
he gave a speech laying out his economic agenda last week, and he couldn’t even
be bothered to talk about a foreclosure crisis that has put so many families on
the brink of catastrophe, and put our economy on the brink of a recession.
We’ve had enough of the can’t-do, won’t do, won’t even
try approach from George Bush and John McCain. We can’t afford another President
who can’t be bothered to stand up for working people. It’s time for change. It’s
time that
Washington went to work for working people.
To stabilize our housing market and to bring this crisis
to an end, I’m a strong supporter of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank’s proposal to
create a new FHA Housing Security Program. This will provide meaningful
incentives for lenders to buy or refinance existing mortgages, and to convert
them into stable 30-year fixed mortgages. This is not a windfall for borrowers –
as they have to share any capital gain. It’s not a bailout for lenders or
investors who gambled recklessly – as they will take losses. It asks both sides
to sacrifice. It offers a responsible and fair way to help Americans who are
facing foreclosure to keep their homes at rates they can afford.
The President has threatened to veto this approach. Well
it’s time to stand up to George Bush, and to tell him to stop standing in the
way of meaningful relief for working people. Congress must pass this bill. The
President should sign it. And the FHA must get to work implementing it this
fall. We cannot wait any longer – it’s time for
Washington to finally start to act.
For homeowners who were victims of fraud, I’ve also
proposed an immediate $10 billion Foreclosure Prevention Fund. If the government
can bail out investment banks on Wall Street, then we can extend a hand to folks
who are struggling on
Main
Street . This fund will help homeowners sell a home
that is beyond their means, or modify their loan to avoid foreclosure or
bankruptcy. And it’s long past time to amend bankruptcy laws that were written
to protect banks and lenders instead of working people. Families should not be
forced to stick to the terms of a home loan that was predatory or unfair. It’s
time to close a loophole that protects special interests while punishing working
people.
And as President, I’ll get tough on enforcement, raise
the penalties on lenders who break the rules, and implement a new Home Score
system that will allow consumers to find out more about mortgage offers and
whether they’ll be able to make payments. We need a housing market that is open
and honest. We need to make sure that homebuyers have access to accurate and
complete information about their mortgage options.
Finally, we need a tax code that’s fair. John McCain is
running for a third-term of tax cuts that only shift the burden onto working
people. That might make sense to the
Washington lobbyists who run John McCain’s
campaign, but it won’t do anything to help families who are struggling. That’s
why I’m going to give a tax cut to working people. We’ll give homeowners a tax
credit that covers 10 percent of a family’s mortgage interest payment. We’ll
eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000 a year. And we’ll extend
a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 for American workers, and $1,000
for working families. That’s the kind of tax cut that makes sense for working
people.
For far too long, our policies have been measured by how
much sense they made on Wall Street or to the
Washington lobbyists on
K Street . This
election must be our time to stand up and say that those aren’t the American
values that we believe in. We believe in an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s
work. We believe in an
America that welcomes hard-working
immigrants like Francisco. We believe in an
America where you can leave your children with a little more opportunity than you had,
where you aren’t turned out of your home because a mortgage lender went for the
easy buck.
I do not accept an
America where
Washington ’s only message to working people
is: “you’re on your own.” We’re here to once again reaffirm that fundamental
American belief – that we’re all in this together as Americans. Because the
dreams of hard-working people like Felicitas and Francisco matter to us. Their
struggle is our struggle. Their dreams are our dreams – that’s why we call it
“the American Dream.” And that’s what I’ll work for, and fight for, every day as
President of the
United
States .
