Mitt Romney’s answer to the wave of home foreclosures might not play too well with swing-state voters. In an interview on Monday with the Las Vegas Review Journal — located in the state of Nevada, where the economy has been particularly damaged by the collapse of real estate — Romney spoke out against stopping foreclosures.
“As to what to do for the housing industry specifically — and are there things that you can do to encourage housing? One is, don’t try and stop the foreclosure process,” said Romney. “Let it run its course, and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy up homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up, and let it turn around and come back up.
“The Obama administration has slow-walked the foreclosure process that long existed, and as a result we still have a foreclosure overhang.
“Number two, the credit that was given to first-time homebuyers was insufficient and inadequate to turn around the housing market. I think it was an ineffective idea, it was a little bit like the Cash For Clunkers program — throwing government money at something, which was not market-oriented, did not staunch the decline in home values any more than it encouraged the auto industry to take off.”
However, as he continued, he is not closing the door on all options — though he’s also not agreeing to any: “I think the idea of helping people refinance homes to stay in them is one that’s worth further consideration. But I’m not signing on until I find out who’s gonna pay, and who’s gonna get bailed out. And that’s not something that we know all the answers to yet.”
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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