A Few Pre-election Thoughts

For starters, President Obama was on The Tonight Show on Oct. 24. You can still see the episode by going to the Tonight Show website. The interview is broken up into five segments, and I'll quote from the end of segment 2 and the start of segment 3: Obama: "The biggest thing that we can do right now for the housing market though is to help more people refinance their homes." Leno: "Right." Obama: "And it actually could save the average family about 3,000 bucks, but a lot of homes are still under water. If congress passes legislation that we've already put before them, then we could actually see millions of families essentially get a $3,000 tax cut ..." Leno: "Right." Obama: "... and that means that the've got more money in their pockets. They're spending it, uh, at stores or they're putting it back in to equity in their own home. The whole economy could be stronger, so, uh, everybody who's listening, uh, regardless of party, tell congress when they get back to work, uh, to go ahead and get this thing done. It would be a great Christmas present for the U.S. economy." Has the president been peeking at my blog? How long has he been sitting on this? Why has he never brought it up before? When he says "3,000 bucks", it might have been better if he'd said '3,000 bucks per year'. But my real issue is: if he knows how effective this would be, and obviously he does, why doesn't he show a little leadership? Why leave it up to congress? By the time they get done with it, who knows how bad it will be (if it isn't already screwed up). If it involves spending, it's just plain WRONG. If it doesn't, just pull the trigger on an executive order. If we don't change the LENDING, it's not going to solve the problem with housing. In my opinion, neither Obama nor Romney deserve to win this election. If I saw this solution four years ago, the presidential candidates should have also. Obama should have been ready to run with this the day he took office. If he had, we would be much better off today and no opposing candidate would have stood a chance in the upcoming election. Since he didn't, he left the door wide open for a challenger, even one with as much baggage as Romney. How could the Republicans have selected such a terrible candidate? The democrats have had a field day with their attack ads, which is why I expect Obama to be re-elected. Even for all of his baggage, Romney could have ensured a victory if he'd simply selected this (fixing the housing problem) as a platform and shown how effective that it would be in creating jobs and turning the economy around. After the election, I'll change the focus of this blog from the housing solution to why this country is, without a doubt, facing an economic day of reckoning.