Obama Goes Doorknocking in Ohio

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To a truck driver on the auto industry:The auto companies [have] been hit hard… they can’t get financing and people can’t get car loans, so you’re going to see a slow down. There was talk about potentially a merger between GM and Chrysler. We don’t know if that’s going to be true or not… What we have to do is we’ve [passed] some loan guarantees for them to start retooling for more fuel efficient cars — so that’s probably going to take two or three years to get going. The truck driver interrupts and notes we have to go green. Obama agrees: That’s exactly right — we’ve got to get your trucks more fuel efficient.

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Here’s what we need to do. We actually gave, in this rescue package, the Treasury secretary the authority to buy up these mortgages. But part of the deal is, if you do that, then banks that are holding mortgages — you force them to negotiate with the owners so where the bank gives up some of the principle and they figure out a fixed-rate mortage for 30 years that is at a price where people can pay.

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And that’s better off for everybody. So the bank- they’ll lose a little money, but they won’t lose as much money as if they have to sell it in a foreclosure sale. The home owner gets to stay in their home. The community ends up being better off because the prices don’t drop as much as they’re dropping…