VA Senator John Warner started my morning off today with his appearance on Meet the Press. In case you missed the show, you can watch it here.
Next up was AG Bob McDonnell on On the Record. That show will be available on line tomorrow. In it, McDonnell kept mentioning that the amendment to the transportation package to exclude out of state drivers was done by Governor Tim Kaine. The fact that there is virtually no way to collect the money from those folks was never mentioned. Asked about a run for governor against Mark Warner, McDonnell was noncommittal, saying that Warner left the governor’s mansion with high ratings.
Host Joel Rubin mentioned that Del. Brian Moran will be on the show next week. Guess we’re going to hear from all of the potential 2009 gubernatorial candidates 🙂
Our other Senator, Jim Webb, opened the segment on This Week. Of more interest to me was the segment with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Summers said that the “risks of a downturn have increased” with the impact of the mortgage industry problems. He said that the focus of the policy should not be on protecting investors; rather, it should be on the homeowner. They also talked a bit about the WSJ report on a recent study on low-income home ownership. Essentially, the WJS says that home ownership has a poor payoff for low-income homeowners. Summers disagreed with the editorial, saying that the American Dream should not be denied to low income people. He places the blame for the problems being faced by low-income homeowners, many of which have housing costs exceeding 50% of their income, on predatory lending.
The issue of subprime lending is something that I intend to write a post on soon.
Forgot to mention: the roundtable on This Week (which doesn’t appear to be online anywhere). I enjoyed the discussion of the fate of FL vis a vis the DNC. The consensus was that FL will go ahead and move its primary up regardless of the threatened actions of the DNC. Failure to seat FL’s delegates at the convention is meaningless, since the nominee will already be known by then.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Thanks for the links, Vivian. I love the Sunday morning shows, but I’m never home to watch them!
I’m going to try to find the WSJ article. At first glance, I’d have to agree with Summers. The WSJ conclusion just seems nonsensical to me. Certainly, spending 50% of one’s income on housing is inadvisable, but that is a generality. Their concern over mobility is, I think, quite incorrect. The less skilled the worker, the easier it is for him to find work, because he can do many things equally well. A professional, however, has his area of expertise. If that expertise is not in demand, it is difficult for him to find a job in another field providing similar pay. It is much easier for a mason to become a dry-waller than for a history professor to become a mathematician.
I also agree that no effort should be made to bail out investors. Furthermore, many of these new loans are horribly complicated. Even “simple” fixed-rate, 30-year mortgages are many pages of very fine print, requiring initials all over the place. And the loan officers and lawyers can get positively testy if you actually want to read the thing before you sign it. (A close relative of mine is a closing agent for Navy Federal.)
Many people, especially the less financially astute, have been taken in by these loan hustlers. I cannot see how anyone claiming to be working in the best interest of the home-buyer could advocate an adjustable-rate mortgage when interest rates were at 30-year lows. It’s almost guaranteed that the rates will go back up, and if by some chance they were to go down more, you refinance! (Which is what we did.)