bailout plan

Now that the bailout package has been hatched out, it looks like Bush and Congress have once again left struggling homeowners in the lurch, this time sending relief to those who helped put every homeowner in crisis in the first place. One critic says the plan is so troubling that it’s as if Congress has told homeowners to “drop dead.”

Minnesota home prices have declined by as much as 20 percent. More than 27,000 will have their homes foreclosed on in the next year. Twenty-five percent of ARMS in the state have yet to adjust. And thousands of more homeowners are struggling with negative equity in their homes as the housing market continues to be hit with serious aftershocks.

So how will homeowners caught up in the crisis fare under the Bush Administration’s Wall Street bailout? U of M law professor and former assistant attorney general Prentiss Cox says the bailout is “like a reverse criminal action where you give restitution to the criminals and put the victims in jail.” He talks to MnIndy about how we got here and why the bailout needs to change.