Do you know how your candidate plans to fix America’s housing problem? If you don’t, then you better start doing your homework. The race to win the Republican Party’s nomination for the 2012 presidential election has kicked into high gear, and it’s time for the nominees to explain how they intend to fix the country’s most pressing financial problem. If you’re voting in the Republican primaries and want to learn about your favorite candidate’s housing plan, here’s a brief overview.
- Mitt Romney. The GOP’s maligned frontrunner last spoke about the housing crisis in early November, so it’s been a little while. In that most-recent weigh-in, he suggested that we should accelerate the foreclosure rate around the country in order to force the market to hit bottom. Once it’s flattened, investors will be able to pick up foreclosures for cheap and develop them into rental properties.
- Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum was once the strongest advocate for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s affordable housing plans, which many right-leaning politicians believe was the cause the market collapse. Although he’s one of their most vocal detractors these days, he hasn’t yet come up with a plan to solve the problem he helped create.
- Newt Gingrich. The former speaker of the House has been mostly quiet regarding his plans to do to fix the housing crisis. However, his campaign has announced that he’s been in discussions with mortgage lenders and other financial experts as to how the market could be resuscitated.
- Ron Paul. For a libertarian candidate, Ron Paul has tremendous momentum leading into the South Carolina primaries. He’s also the most vocal candidate on the subject of America’s housing problem. Paul would completely eliminate the government’s role in the market. He would dismantle federal mortgage guarantors Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and even eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Reducing the government’s role in the housing market seems to be the popular, if vague, plan of choice for many of the Republican candidates. But if a right-wing politician wins the election this November (and regardless of whether they cut the budget by a little or a lot) we’re likely to see the number of foreclosures rise for a spell before hopefully grinding to a halt.
