Poor people deserve to own property, too Re: “Grim outlook for housing market,” Dec. 9, & “Congress must act to stop the next housing crash,” editorial, Dec. 10 Anyone who lived through Bill Clinton’s repair of George H.W. Bush’s policies should successfully have predicted that getting out of the housing/economic crisis would take five to six years at best. That our greed will eventually lead us into another mess is, unfortunately, not news.
The real root cause of this housing crisis is the rich decision-maker’s approach to economic policies affecting all income levels: Like me = favors; Not like me = get lost. Implying poorer folks don’t deserve private property because it’s risky to be poor is elitist. This is America, the land of equal opportunity, in case you haven’t heard.
A recently aired TV program cited the source of U.S. success versus other developing countries as private ownership by all economic levels. If you only want rich people getting home loans, please check your Republican ID at the door of your building.
Doreen Turczyn-Toles
Gaithersburg
Falling prices makes housing more affordable
Re: “Grim outlook for housing market,” Dec. 9 Your cover story on the housing market took rising prices as an improvement and falling prices as “worsening.” This is a very questionable analysis.
Higher prices are not necessarily of much good to homeowners who don’t plan to sell, and they are bad for young couples looking to buy a home. Affordable housing is generally considered a good thing, not a public calamity.
If people think otherwise, they may come to regard falling prices as a “market failure,” as Hank Paulson put it, and support spending taxpayers’ money to bail out real estate speculators. I do not support such policies, and I gather that The Examiner does not either.
Nicholas D. Rosen
Arlington
Progressives behind MontCo’s budget woes
Re: “Montgomery targets unsustainable salaries, benefits,” Dec. 7 How did we get to this state in Montgomery County: a $350 million budget shortfall, with employee salaries increasing 50 percent and pension benefits more than 120 percent?
I believe County Councilman Roger Berliner, D-Bethesda, explained it perfectly: “You are before one of the most progressive political bodies in the country.”
Throw them out before they run out of other people’s money to spend.
Larry Krauser
Montgomery Village
