Thursday, February 19, 2009

Not With My Tax Dollars

We now officially live in the twilight zone.

Me: My wife and I work hard, pay our mortgage on time and live relatively house-poor (albeit comfortably.)
You: Can't afford your home, don't have 20% equity and are facing a possible foreclosure.
Obama: Wants to use my tax dollars to help keep 4 million people like you in the houses you couldn't afford in the first place.

Now, for starters, I'm not cruel. I don't want people out on the street and homeless. However, you have to live in a house you can afford. I started in an apartment, saved, bought a house, sold it, bought another house. Each time with a budget and an understanding that it is a home we can afford.

Quite simply, no. I don't want to pay for this. Each day I make choices. Brown bag lunch or buy lunch. Buy a book or borrow one from the library (props to the Wayne NJ Public library). Get a new car or keep the old one. All these choices are guided by a budget, the same budget that lets me keep the home we can afford. Housing for everyone, sure, but why should I subsidize your acquisition of equity and wealth at the expense of my own?

I have many questions about the "stimulus" bill, TARP 1 and TARP 2 but I can wrap my mind around this one. I don't want to subsidize peoples mortgages. No one is subsidizing mine and I'm not asking for a handout.

Thomas Friedman had a great editorial about a possible solution to the housing crisis by loosening immigration. I'm all for it. (you can read it here. )

I know we have very little control over how our tax dollars are spent (which is so very very wrong) but this is one multi-billion dollar idea that simply stinks to high heaven.

Arrggghhhhh!

On the bright side, I have linked my blog (yes, I started a blog) to facebook. I am now as technically savvy in the blogosphere as your average 8th grader and quite giddy about it.

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