The Human Face Of The Home Foreclosure Crisis

In Vancouver, Washington home foreclosures are up 80% over last year, with 311 homes currently in foreclosure. Now, one out of every 501 homes are currently in foreclosure in this Washington city that is just North of the Oregon border. It is an alarming situation where the foreclosure rate in this community is now twice the state average.

At the same time some conservatives just don't seem to recognize the seriousness of this recession and continue to mobilize support to oppose either Democratic efforts in congress or proposals by President-Elect Obama to stabilize the economy. This certainly is not in the best interest of this nation. And Democratic lawmakers are perfectly willing to accommodate any serious Republican concerns in seeking a bipartisan consensus on many issues such as the auto industry bailout legislation. There have been substantial compromises to par the proposal down to just $15 billion, far lower than the more than $30 billion that the auto industry sought at one point just a few days ago, and appoint an "auto czar" to oversee the industry progress towards a lasting industry revival.

Today, HUMAN EVENTS, the conservative publication is sending out a new Email to mobilize a quarter million readers to resist the incoming political agenda of President-Elect Obama claiming it is somehow "radical liberal" in nature. But the truth is that Obama has made many centrist choices in cabinet picks and believes that his 53% win in November requires him to be inclusive of the 47% of votes for other candidates including John McCain. This is a far different philosophy than President Bush who considered his 51% of the vote win over John Kerry in 2004 as a clear mandate and that he somehow had great "political capital" from this narrow win to spend.

It may be nearly impossible to satisfy the far right even though the serious recession and economic damage they have done to this nation have so discredited their shortsighted political philosophy which at times seems very short on both human compassion as well as common sense. So much of their philosophy is so antiunion and antiworker, and now so many don't even have jobs now as a disastrous consequence of their failed economics. The fact is that the auto unions have been working with the auto industry in close cooperation to help to save this industry. Workers don't want to bankrupt their place of work. They just want a fair wage and good working conditions. And now that the economy is in such serious condition, workers just want a job. They are more than willing to compromise to save their workplace.

Voters clearly voted for a change in November. And a bipartisan majority of both Democrats and mainstream Republican legislators now must work together to reverse serious human tragedies such as the home foreclosure crisis in Vancouver, Washington. With the economy standing right on the brink of possibly slipping into another Great Depression without strong bipartisan direction from Washington, it is a good time to ask those strong partisans over at HUMAN EVENTS to think about the good of their country and to show some sense of compromise to work to prevent this serious economic crisis from only worsening.