When Congress Works

David Broder's July 31 column for the Washington Post offers info on the new National Housing Trust Fund, which makes a good beginning on creating affordable housing for both cities and rural areas. In "When Congress Works", Broder says,

"For far too long, the federal government has been shirking its responsibility to help the neediest Americans meet their basic housing need. Food stamp allocations have been increased repeatedly to combat hunger, in part because the farm lobby values the additional markets for its products."

Well ... yes. We agree. The farm lobby does appreciate the fact that when people are hungry, they need food ... whether they can afford it or not.

And well ... yes. Finally. The housing lobby, pushed by the home mortgage loan crisis as an extra incentive, finally got the job done, or started. Our congratulations to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Jack Reed and Richard Shelby ... and all the other folks who helped too. Read more.

"The Traveling Taps Bridgade"

Memorial Day. Remember how we used to call it "Decoration Day"? It was a time of true remembrance and honor for our nation.

But times change. Now, the Department of Defense (DOD) policy calls for keeping the deaths of our soldiers, lost in the Afghan War and the Iraq Occupation, a secret. No pictures are allowed at Dover, DE's airbase, the place that our fallen sons and daughters first touch soil in their caskets.

It's a very sad thing, certainly because of the loss each family and our country faces when we lose an individual soldier and also a loss for our democracy as a whole, i.e., it's also a sort of "catch 22", i.e., our sons and daughters are sent to war, or volunteer to go to war, to defend democracy.

But DOD's secrets, as required by President Bush and supported by John McCain, actually result in a weakening of our democracy, since voters ... in order to make wise decisions at the polls ... must arm themselves with all kinds of information about how our nation is doing, including why the wars began, why they continue and more. Without accurate information or at a minimum the ability to access both the good and the bad, it means that voters have a tougher time making the wise decisions necessary to protect our great democracy.

One person who has felt the call to make the news public and to honor our almost 4000 lost soldiers is Joe Baldo of Maryland:

"At the age of 71 ... retired and in the twilight of his life, he shuttles from cemetary to cemetary across Maryland. And
everywhere he goes, he takes three pairs of white gloves, his meticulously pressed Air Force uniform and, in the back seat of his car, his 1933 Bach Stradivarius trumpet. For 27 years, Mr. Baldo devoted his trumpet to his country ... day after day sounding taps at Arlington Memorial Cemetary for soldiers funerals. "

Now, every day -- all across Maryland, he spends his days driving from funeral to funeral, playing his trumpet for our nation's fallen soldiers. Read more of the Washington Post's story here.

We each need to do our part, too. One way to do it is to make your own personal pledge to learn more about the decisions that paved the way to more than five years of war for our nation and the undue burden our rural sons and daughters are carrying in the war, so today -- Memorial Day 2008, in honor of our rural soldiers, we share the following "extra" reading.

• "Rural Death Rate Higher Among Soldiers from Rural Areas" -- by the Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire. Also available in podcast from the Center for Rural Strategies.
• George Bush's Deep Reasons for War in Iraq: Oil, Petrodollars and the OPEC Euro Question
• Reasons Not to Invade Iraq by George Bush, Sr.
• US Military to Probe Propaganda Effort
• Honoring OurVeterans on Memorial Day by the Center for American Progress

This last story is a critical read. It tells the story by the numbers -- who our veterans are, how many new veterans we have, and more about how they live with disabilities and how our nation meets their challenges on mental health and homelessnews.

Which Will We Choose -- Wall Street vs. Main Street -- in the Fight to Fix the Home Ownership/Mortgage Lending Crisis?

It was in the 1980's that many of us who lived on farms in rural communities either lost our land or saw our friends lose theirs. I remember it well because it was then that I moved away from the farm that I loved.

Yesterday, as I watched presidential candidate John McCain speak about his solution for home owners affected by the mortgage lending crisis, it all came back -- an echo of the past about the haunting emotional pain that we felt all across rural America, losing the land we loved, moving away, wondering if we'd ever be financially secure again. I remembered the increase in the divorce rate, the child custody battles, as well as how some turned to increased drug and alcohol abuse as homes and farms were lost.

I asked myself, "Is the mortgage crisis bringing on the same kinds of anxiety and heartbreak that the Farm Crisis did in the 1980's?" And I almost hate to admit it but yes, it seems so as I thought back -- George H. W. Bush was president at the end of this ugly period; he tried to cure our ailing economy by urging us all to go out and buy a couple of pairs of new socks. What I can't remember ... was that before or after he discovered that grocery stores had machines in them (glory be!) that could actually read the price labels. I mean Who Knew?

But now, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We're on the verge of ending another failed Presidency and hopefully, voters will make a wiser choice for President this year, than we did either time we chose a Bush for president.

That choice -- who to vote for President -- is one that eventually we will need to add to our growing list of speeches and program proposals that matter, or don't ... asking ourselves: Are we for or against?

Yesterday -- one year after the home ownership crisis began, we listened carefully as McCain spoke about our fragile middle class economy and what he thought was most important about responding to the crisis. I wondered, "Is he going to choose Wall Street or Main Street?"

McCain emphasized, "A sustained period of rising home prices made many home lenders complacent, giving them a false sense of security and causing them to lower their lending standards ... Lenders ended up violating the basic rule of banking: don't lend people money who can't pay it back."

True. Some people may have purchased homes they couldn't afford and true, we shouldn't "lend people money who can't pay it back" but many of the people who bought homes purchased in good faith. They paid their loans on time.

We have to ask? How is it that McCain blames the people who bought the houses, rather than the predatory lending system that allowed some mortgage brokers to go for the big bucks? 'Looking for excuses to take houses back, they now rush to take the homes back, later to resell and claim additional profit.

Why -- if lenders made mistakes as McCain said, would he want to ease the regulations on lenders?

Why -- didn't McCain offer policies that would aid the families who are hurt by lender mistakes?

Why -- would McCain reward the lenders for their mistakes? ... which he did.

What would have made sense -- common sense -- would have been to propose using the FHA home loan program, offering counseling for the families, loan restructuring and tax breaks -- all ways that offer immediate help to the families, while also penalizing the lenders who over-stepped. Some of these solutions are already being offered in Congress. See Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and the two other presidential candidates -- Obama and Clinton.