Left-Wing Pork in Bill for Homeowners

Posted by Hans Bader

The bill fashioned by Senate leaders to supposedly “help” homeowners struggling with their mortgages contains tons of left-wing pork, such as money for “mortgage counseling” by left-wing groups.  When the economy goes sour and borrowers with bad credit have difficulty paying their mortgages, the left-wing housing groups claim that they should be able to get out of their mortgages because they were victims of “predatory lending.”  But if the banks had refused to make those very same loans, they would have been accused of “discrimination” or “red-lining.”  Left-wing housing groups specialize in extortion and bait-and-switch. 

A classic example is the self-described “bank terrorist” Bruce Marks, a sanctimonious thug who harasses the children of bank managers at their schools to force the banks to agree to deals giving his left-wing housing group, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, money to “assist” borrowers with bad credit in obtaining loans. 

The Boston Globe’s contemptible Neil Swidey celebrated this extortion in declaring Marks his ”Bostonian of the Year“:

“Marks and his yellow-T-shirted followers have swarmed shareholders’ meetings with enough force to shut them down. They have picketed outside the schools attended by the children of bank CEOs, pressing the youngsters in signs and chants to answer for the actions of their daddies. And they even once distributed scandal sheets to every house in one CEO’s neighborhood, detailing the affair he was allegedly having with a subordinate. In time, that CEO, like most of the others that NACA targeted, sat down with Marks and signed a deal.”

Bruce Marks belongs in jail, but given the politically-correct legal climate in the northeast, he’ll probably be able to get away with his thuggery for quite a while.

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04/03/2008 @ 11:26 am | Constitutional & Legal, Economic Liberty, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony | Comments

7 Responses to “Left-Wing Pork in Bill for Homeowners”

  1. Posted by: More Costly Mortgage Bailout Bills Loom | OpenMarket.org - 04/05/2008

    [...] “bipartisan” deal between Senate leaders that would provide millions of dollars of pork for left-wing lobbying groups.  We and other commentators earlier explained why bailout proposals similar to Dodd’s are a [...]

  2. Posted by: Senate Bill Will Cause, Not Prevent Foreclosures, and Rip Off Taxpayers | OpenMarket.org - 04/07/2008

    [...] inefficient.”  We earlier criticized Congressional mortgage bailout proposals and subsidies to left-wing housing groups.  The American public opposes mortgage bailouts. addthis_url = [...]

  3. Posted by: Senate Passes Bad Mortgage Bill, House Seeks to Make It More Rotten | OpenMarket.org - 04/10/2008

    [...] mortgage bailouts, even though most citizens oppose mortgage bailouts.  Left-wing lobbying groups stand to make a killing at taxpayers’ expense from Congressional foreclosure-relief bills. [...]

  4. Posted by: Mortgage Bailout Bill Is Corporate Welfare | OpenMarket.org - 06/25/2008

    [...] who bully bank managers to make loans to people without good credit histories, in some cases by harassing their children at school, and in others by calling them racist or accusing them of racial discrimination if they refuse to [...]

  5. Posted by: Affordable Housing Trust Boondoggle | OpenMarket.org - 07/08/2008

    [...] special-interest groups, such as militants who harass bank managers’ children to order intimidate banks into making loans to people with bad credit, and groups that lobby for taxpayer-funded welfare benefits for illegal aliens.  It would also [...]

  6. Posted by: Mortgage Bailout Bill Beneficiary Covered Up Embezzlement | OpenMarket.org - 07/09/2008

    [...] will also provide pork for left-wing groups that harass bank managers’ children to intimidate them into making loans to people with bad credit and support welfare benefits for illegal aliens.  It will cost taxpayers billions, bail out [...]

  7. Posted by: The Mortgage Bailout Bill Gets Weirder and Weirder | OpenMarket.org - 07/10/2008

    [...] borrowers to default, while subsidizing left-wing groups that harass bank managers’ kids to coerce them into making bad loans.  The mortgage bill will subsidize the radical group ACORN, which has concealed embezzlement [...]

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