McCain Flips on Mortgage Buyout

John McCain whipped out his surprise idea at the start of Tuesday night's debate: The American Homeownership Resurgence Plan, which would direct the government to buy up bad home mortgages, allowing strapped people to keep their property. His campaign posted details of the plan online immediately after it was announced that night. The final paragraph of that plan included this language:

“Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.”

In other words, the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper. That sentence, however, was completely omitted from the same document when presented the following morning. Staffers claimed it was always meant to be that way, and that the sentence was an "oversight". There's another, more accurate, word for it: "bait". The wording was included originally to make the statement more palatable for those who would likely oppose it as McCain really intended for it to work, forcing us to pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason that Barack Obama gave for opposing the plan.

Obama Campaign Economic Policy Director Jason Furman said in the campaign statement opposing McCain's plan: "John McCain wants the government to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don’t recover. The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

As usual, the Pander Bear is looking out for his lobbyist cronies and wealthy friends in the financial sector, promising Americans what they want to hear, and pulling the rug out from underneath them under cover of darkness. Is anyone actually fooled by this man's games anymore?