Builders Sodomize American Taxpayers for the Second Time in 20 Years Replete with Government Complicity

Can you smell the KY smoking? Is your lower back aching? Can you barely remember what happened to you? Well, let me refresh your memory…

1986 - 1995: $500 billion S&L bailout bill crafted by our elected officials that benefited fraudulent developers and lenders directly costing taxpayers approx. $153 Billion.

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar? It should; its damn near a mirror image of what is happening today with a few caveats. Here is what happened back then…

A bunch of greedy people got together and opened up a slew of S&L’s (Savings and Loans - specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage loans) that were able to take in millions of dollars in government backed (FSLIC ) CD deposits and then take the same deposits (minus their capitol of course) and originate new mortgage loans with the money. Everyone involved got rich.

Then the greedy people got even greedier. The owners of these S&L’s began using the profits to make loans to their friends, relatives, and developers to fund construction projects that should never have been built. This created a building boom with no buyers. Meanwhile, all of this money being generated made it possible for kickbacks to accountants, auditors, representatives and senators on the banking committees.

Then the recession hits and the developers default on the loans causing a collapse of the construction market. Then our government comes to the rescue of the developers and S&L’s (who just got filthy rich) with our taxpayer money to bail them out.

Talk about sickening Déjà vu. Now fast forward to today…

2008 - $25 billion Builder Bailout under the guise of the “Housing Relief Bill” aka “2008 Foreclosure Prevention Act” passed by our Senate and being considered by our Congress preceded by mortgage fraud and over-development perpetrated by lending institutions and homebuilders pushing subprime garbage facilitated in shady back-room dealings.

Residential homebuilders saw the opportunity to make record profits due to the lowering of interest rates and a possible repeat of history. When the builders saw how much money the lenders were making they decided to enter and push their own mortgages; many times forcing homebuyers to use their in-house financing. Then subprime lending was just too profitable to ignore and the big homebuilders began pushing riskier loans to people who were obviously not going to be unable to repay them. All the while, building shoddily constructed new homes at a fevered pace causing the huge overhang of severely overpriced homes (by as much as 60%) in the residential housing market we are currently enjoying.

The flood of foreclosures and complaints of shoddily built homes that were sure to come are all around us driving our home values and wealth down. Yet, homebuilders and lenders have gotten rich as can be attested by the obscene compensation packages of their CEO’s and record profits.

Now, after all of this ill gotten money has been made, the homebuilders wanted to get in line to gorge again at the public trough via the first stimulus package. When they were denied the carry back tax credits that they sought the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) threatened our government officials with, “ceasing all approvals and disbursements of BUILD-PAC contributions to federal congressional candidates and their PACs until further notice.”  As a result of this apparently legal blackmail, our elected officials crafted a second version of the bill that has been stripped of actual aids to the homeowners in order to serve up the public money demanded of them by the home building lobby lest the congress and the senate lose their precious reelection money; somewhat along the lines of legal bribes that assure future blackmail if the intended demands are not met; can you say Bob Perry of Perry Homes?

If this dual “Sodomizing of the American Taxpayer” (you and me) to further enrich the wealthy has angered you as it has me, I urge you to contact your congressmen and senators and demand their accountability to the American people instead of continuing "corporate welfare" and strike out the tax credits demanded by the homebuilding industry (blackmail money) from the Housing Relief Bill / The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. And if our elected officials refuse to represent their constituents – let’s vote the sorry b**tards out of office!!