CT Post on Shays and Mortgage Mess
Today's Connecticut Post follows up on Sunday's investigative New York Post story on Chris Shays's support for legislation that would allow for more risky mortgages -- and his $800,000 worth of support from a the National Association of Realtors PAC this year:
The New York Post reported Sunday that Shays' effort to overturn the ban on what the tabloid dubbed "the riskiest type of government-backed mortgages" had "raised a few eyebrows in his district." In July, Congress passed legislation that banned Federal Housing Administration mortgages made with seller-financed down payments to buyers who don't have the cash for a down payment. The Bush administration had argued for the ban saying that these no-money-down mortgages go to foreclosure three times as often as FHA mortgages in which the buyer puts a down payment on the house....
Shays has received the second largest amount of support from the association. They spent nearly $1.3 million helping re-elect Rep. Paul Kanjorsky, D-Pa., a 12-term Democrat who chairs the Financial Services subcommittee that oversees government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Brownsox at Daily Kos also has more:
To wit, witness this 2007 comment from Shays, an avowed member of the blame-homeowners-first crowd:
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."
To which the Connecticut Post responded:
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?
The same week that Shays helped get the Financial Services Committee to approve H.R. 6694, the National Association of Realtors PAC dumped over $500,000 into pro-Shays ad buys. Obviously, Shays is also in a hotly contested race with Orange to Blue candidate Jim Himes.
As it happens, Shays has close ties to realtors specializing in loans to low-income families; his brother Tony is just such a realtor.
At the same time, Shays' brother, Tony, is a real-estate broker whose Stamford firm stands to benefit from the reintroduction of the SFDPA program, as it caters to low-income buyers.
So now we know what it takes for Both Ways Shays to be converted from his erstwhile position urging homeowner responsibility, to a staunch defender of no-down-payment lending.
Every man has his price, it seems, and Chris Shays' price is $800,000 in campaign ads, plus a sweet gig for his brother.
