CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton favors a 90-day freeze on mortgage foreclosures, a position that could play well in Ohio where thousands of homeowners are in default. Clinton contends federal regulators have given a pass to abusive subprime lenders. She is supporting a five-year moratorium on interest rate increases.
Ohio has one of the nation's highest foreclosure rates, and courthouses from Cleveland to Cincinnati are flooded with legal actions brought by banks and lenders against homeowners who can't pay their debts. The foreclosures have devastated neighborhoods by pushing home prices down, creating a glut, and often leaving local governments on the hook for unpaid property taxes and nuisance empty or abandoned buildings.
Clinton has been promising a freeze on foreclosures and interest rates, and reiterated her position last weekend at a Baptist convention in Atlanta. She will be speaking a lot about the foreclosure crisis in Ohio ahead of the March 4 Demcoratic primary. Here's what she said last weekend:
"When I say solutions I mean fixing this housing crisis because a house is more than just your greatest source of wealth. It's the center of your family, it's where you make memories and develop relationships. No one should take that away from you because of the subprime abusive practices that so many mortgage lenders engage in without any supervision or oversight from the federal government. We've got to have a moratorium on home foreclosures for 90 days so we can help people stay in their homes. And let's freeze those interest rates so they don't keep going up and forcing more and more people into debt, into foreclosure."
Pure pandering.
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