President Obama's Savior-Based Economy

By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, February 11, 2009 4:20 PM PT

President Obama is back in messianic campaign mode. It is unbecoming.
When he's not snarling at conservative opponents of his endless spending
programs, he's pandering to supporters as the nation's
community-organizer-in-chief.

At a stimulus rally in Fort Myers, Fla., on Tuesday, a woman named
Henrietta Hughes stood up to decry the mortgage crisis and ask Obama for
his personal help. Choking back tears, she implored: "I have an urgent
need. . . . We need a home, our own kitchen, our own bathroom."

If she had more time, she probably would have remembered to ask Obama to
fill up her gas tank, too. The soul-fixer dutifully asked her name, gave
her a hug and ordered his staff to meet with her. Supporters cried
"Amen!" and "Yes!" A young McDonald's worker named
Julio Osegueda bolted
out of his seat and exclaimed: "It is such a blessing to see you. Oh!
Gracious God, thank you so much! Ungh!"

The event turned into a full-blown revival meeting when Obama announced
that the Senate had passed his massive stimulus plan. Audience members
erupted into applause. Tongues of fire descended from the sky. Loaves
and fishes (or rather, pork and Kool-Aid) multiplied miraculously into
trillions for all.

GOP Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina didn't know how right he was
when he warned over the weekend: "We're moving precipitously close to
what I would call a savior-based economy."

Like Mighty Mouse, President Obama is here to save the day. The
government is here to help -- and it is your patriotic duty to pay for it
all without preconditions. Hughes didn't explain the cause of her
financial turmoil. Obama didn't ask.

And if we conservatives dare to question the circumstances -- and the
underlying assumption that it is government's (that is, taxpayers') role
to bail her out -- we'll be lambasted as cruel haters of the downtrodden.

Woe unto ye unbelievers in Big Government who cling to what Obama
derided as "ideological rigidity." Well, pardon my unbending belief in
fairness and personal responsibility, but why should my tax dollars go
to feed the housing entitlement beast?

At his fear-mongering press conference Monday night, Obama lamented that
homeowners "are seeing their property values decline." Countrywide crony
Sen. Chris Dodd successfully stuffed $50 billion into the just-passed
stimulus package for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to spend on
"mandatory loan modifications" for homeowners deep underwater on their
mortgages. That's in addition to the $20 billion already allocated by
the House last month for the same purposes.

Banks have been engaged in these "Mo Mod" programs over the past year.
Democrats want to accelerate the pace and use the power of government to
essentially provide a blanket amnesty for borrowers and lenders who made
bad financial decisions.

Yes, there are many responsible borrowers out there having trouble
negotiating loan modifications. But this $50 billion giveaway to the
banks -- on top of the upward of $2 trillion more from the Treasury
department, on top of the $700 billion in original TARP funding -- is
throwing more bad money after bad.

This massive expansion of government meddling in the housing market --
yet another attempt to get federal bureaucrats in the business of
rewriting loan contracts and reducing principal -- will just delay the
inevitable.

A report released by the Comptroller of the Currency in December showed
that more than half of loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 fell
30 days delinquent within six months. And after six months, 35% of
people were 60 or more days behind on their payments.

Where's the fairness in forcing prudent homeowners and renters to
subsidize people who bought overpriced houses and rescue the banks that
lent to them?

Tellingly, Obama chose Fort Myers to drum up support for his wealth
redistributionism. The area has been one of the hardest hit by
foreclosures, as the president was quick to point out. But many of those
homes are second or third homes and investment properties.

And low housing prices are not a catastrophe for everyone. They've
created opportunities for Americans who haven't been able to buy in an
artificially inflated market. The median sales price of a home in the
Fort Myers area fell 50% to $106,900, from $215,200 in December 2007.
Bargain-priced home sales are up 146% from a year ago.

It's sacrilegious to say it in the Age of Obama, but it needs to be
said: Homeownership is not an entitlement. Credit is not a civil right.
Your property-value preservation is not my problem. Can I get an "Amen!"?

Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc

-- 
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is
to fill the world with fools." --Herbert Spencer

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
--Thomas Jefferson

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