| The subprime mortgage market crisis has been hitting Connecticut hard, as it has the entire country, and it seems like its about to hit harder:
California-based RealtyTrac said the number of foreclosures increased 547 percent in the New Haven-Milford area, 522 percent in the Bridgeport-Norwalk-Stamford region and 446 percent in the Hartford area in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2006.
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the Connecticut Post that his office has been inundated with calls from homeowners seeking help.
"We may be on the cusp of a huge wave breaking over Connecticut. People are very understandably upset," Blumenthal said.
In Chris Shays' hometown of Bridgeport and the surrounding big towns in the fourth district, forclosure rates have skyrocketed over 500% in a year. So what was Shays' response to these numbers? To announce his support for actions to prevent predatory lending and help homeowners? Nope. It was to blame the victims:
Still, not everyone is convinced foreclosures attributed to the subprime market are the fault of predatory or deceptive lending. Some say consumers simply bought houses they could not afford....
[Chris Shays] said many buyers in the subprime market put no money down. Although they now face losing their home, Shays said those buyers "never really owned a home in the first place. I'm interested in the extent to which individuals with viable credit were induced to get into the subprime rate."
Shays said he's concerned Democrats want to use taxpayer money to bail out homeowners who should not have bought a house. "I can't imagine helping people who should not have gotten a loan in the first place."
The Connecticut Post editorial board responded today:
But before lawmakers direct all their opprobrium at the subprime recipients, they should remember that there's a reason it's known as "predatory" lending. Unscrupulous lenders take advantage of people's lack of expertise to rope them into damaging arrangements that look agreeable in the short term, but spin out of control thereafter. Most recipients are guilty only of believing the hype that everyone in America deserves, and has the ability, to own a home.
So when Rep. Christopher Shays says, "I can't imagine helping people who should not have gotten a loan in the first place," it's worth wondering who he's taking out his anger on. Is it the people who were defrauded, or the ones who did the defrauding?
No doubt there were people who gamed the system and applied for subprime loans when they were well aware they had no business playing the mortgage game. But to assume anyone caught up in this was willing to take a chance on losing their home, and putting families at risk, is a leap too far.
...Buying a home is challenging and stressful, and almost no one understands all the fine print. Don't put the onus on every homeowner to need a law degree to do what's right for their families.
Chris Shays can't seem to step near a microphone or reporter these days without saying something either inappropriate, incomprehensible, or inexcusable (often, he hits the hat trick). Whether it's his recent comments on Blackwater, Broadwater, Democrats and the Iraq war, his own political career, or attacking a resolution he himself is co-sponsoring, the common thread is a dismissal of all fact and logic, a disrespect for interlocutors and audiences, and a disregard for the responsibilities of his office.
The pattern is clear: he instinctually defends entrenched and powerful interests and players at the expense of his constituents, often while making zero sense, and almost always at high volume, leaving them and everyone else watching his descent scratching their heads and wondering what happened to this once-reasonable public servant.
That's a "Shays Moment" in a nutshell. |
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