Dead Lawns & For-Sale Signs – Where’s Alfonzo Jackson? – Left Margin

The problem is that the Administration’s policies amount to little more than reliance upon vague promises by the mortgage industry to aid borrowers and next to nothing in real terms to arrest the tide of anticipated foreclosures. Critics have stepped up demands that the federal government move with greater speed to confront the crisis. While most of the voices in Washington urging greater action have come from Democrats in Congress like Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) and Barney Frank (D-Mass), the party’s response has been feeble at best. Somehow the crisis facing millions of working class people – disproportionately African America, Latino and Asian – and their communities don’t figure much in the Presidential campaigns.

According to James Parks, writing on the AFL-CIO Blog, a poll recently conducted by the labor federation showed that about half the people with adjustable rate mortgages “expect they will be forced to cut back on everyday expenses like groceries, clothing and gasoline when their payments increase. For families earning $50,000 or less, that proportion is 80 percent.”