Bush Enacts Laws To Ease
Home Crisis, Expand AIDS Effort
By Dan
Eggen
The
31 July
2008
President
Bush yesterday signed two of the most significant measures of his presidency --
one the most sweeping housing legislation in decades and the other an extension
of his massive global program to combat AIDS and HIV infections in the
developing world.
The housing
bill, which was signed in an early morning private ceremony, is aimed at
calming rocky financial markets and giving mortgage relief to up to 400,000
homeowners. Bush had previously vowed to veto the bill because of some of its
provisions.
The AIDS
bill, in contrast, was signed in a celebratory public flourish yesterday
afternoon, and it aims to expand and extend the global program. The legislation
authorizes $48 billion to be spent during the next five years to treat and
prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, with AIDS accounting for $39 billion of
the total. The expenditures would dwarf the $15 billion spent over the previous
five years as part of Bush's emergency anti-AIDS efforts, which the president
and even many of his detractors view as one of the biggest accomplishments of
his tenure.
"We
are a compassionate nation," Bush said at the ceremony. "And that's
what this bill says loud and clear."
Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.),
who sponsored the bill, said its bipartisan support "is a tribute to what
we can achieve in foreign policy when the cause is right and all parties work
together in goodwill."
This bill
overturns a restriction in place since 1992 preventing HIV-positive people from
entering the
Bush's
approval of the housing bill followed months of often-contentious negotiations
between congressional Democrats and the White House over how best to stabilize
housing markets amid plummeting home values and a damaged credit system. The
House passed the bill last week, but nearly three-quarters of the Republican
members voted against it. The Senate approved it Saturday.
The law
provides temporary authority to the administration to offer the struggling
mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac an unlimited line of credit,
a move designed to calm global concerns about the government-sponsored but
investor-owned firms, which guarantee nearly half of all outstanding mortgages
in the
White House
spokesman Tony Fratto said the housing bill would "improve confidence and
stability in markets," while also providing more oversight for the mammoth
firms. Fratto said new policies implemented under the law are "intended to
keep more deserving American families in their homes."
One of the
key parts of the bill authorizes the FHA to help homeowners who, because of
falling prices, owe their lenders more than their houses are worth. If lenders
agree to forgive a portion of the debt and write new loans worth no more than
90 percent of the home's lower value, the FHA will insure the new loans and
agree to pay off the lenders if borrowers default. Homeowners also will get an
immediate equity stake in their properties, which they would have to share with
the government if they sell or refinance.
The law
increases the cap on loans handled by the FHA, as well as Fannie and Freddie,
to $625,000.