"We Can't Wait": For the Government to Butt Out of Our Lives

"We Can't Wait": For the Government to Butt Out of Our Lives
By Erika Johnsen
10/24/2011

Please, just stop. Stop trying to fix things. Stop trying to strengthen the federal government's tentacles until they're wrapped around every single aspect of our lives. It isn't working. It's so elementary, it's painful.

Seeking to circumvent congressional opposition, President Barack Obama will promote a series of executive branch steps aimed at jumpstarting the economy this week, beginning with new rules to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

An administration official said the housing initiative will help homeowners with little or no equity in their homes refinance by cutting the cost of doing so and removing caps for deeply underwater borrowers. The new rules apply to homeowners with federally guaranteed mortgages who are current on their payments. ...

With the president's jobs bill struggling in Congress, the White House is refocusing its efforts on steps Obama can take to address the nation's economic woes without getting lawmakers' approval. During his three-day trip to the West Coast this week, Obama will use a new catchphrase to try to push Republicans into action: "We can't wait." ...

The housing program Obama will discuss Monday will be implemented by the independent Federal Housing Finance Agency. At its core, the initiative will relax eligibility standards for a federal refinancing program, allowing those who owe more on their house than it is worth to take advantage of loans with lower interest rates.

The federal government has continued to expand, spend, and regulate ever-increasingly since the close of the Bush era, and all of these new policies, if they don't make things infinitely worse, certainly don't make things any better. The housing market in particular is the victim of excessive government oversight, and it's struggling accordingly. These and other lame attempts to fix the housing market are just weak band-aids that fall far short of addressing the actual, deep-seated problem. And the best part? The President is once again looking for ways to enforce his ideas through executive fiat, skirting around that pesky, crotchety ol' legislative branch. But, when this idea also fails to bear fruit, I wonder to which party the President will attempt to assign the blame?

The Obama administration's policies were given free reign before the 2010 Congressional changeover - the 2009 stimilus, the financial regulations, the environmental projects... The list goes on, and as fond as Obama is of reassuring phrases like "these things take time," we've waited long enough for these policies to work. Yet another catchphrase recognizing that "we can't wait" won't change the fact that we'll keep on waiting as long as reality fails to penetrate Obama's stubborn ideologies.