Signs of the Apocalypse: The WaPo Editorial Board Gets One Right

They label the Senate foreclosure bill a, "A Pro-Foreclosure Bill":

We refer to a $7,000 tax credit (payable over two years) to anyone who purchases a foreclosed home within a year of the proposal's enactment. Supposedly, this would help clear the nation's swollen inventory of repossessed properties, thus propping up home prices more generally. Here's the catch. For lenders as well as borrowers, foreclosure is an expensive hassle. If at all possible, most banks would rather avoid repossessing a house, which they must then try to resell. But, by making it cheaper to buy a foreclosed house than a comparable unforeclosed property, the tax credit makes it more feasible to sell one. The cost and hassle -- for the lender -- of foreclosure go down, and the benefits go up. Other things being equal, lenders would be that much more likely to foreclose -- rather than to help homeowners stay in their houses on modified terms.

The record of the Washington Post editorial board lately has been so bad that I've come to wonder if Richard Nixon was innocent.


H/T Dean Baker