Speaking Wednesday in Mesa, AZ — a giant Phoenix suburb that is a “poster child for foreclosure” — President Obama announced a plan to “help as many as nine million American homeowners refinance their mortgages or avert foreclosure. He asserted his plan would shore up housing prices, stabilize neighborhoods and slow a downward spiral that was ‘unraveling homeownership, the middle class and the American Dream itself.'” In addition to an investment of $200 billion for “strengthening confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan will “pour more than $75 billion into arresting one of the root causes of the nation’s economic spiral” by helping homeowners obtain more affordable mortgage terms. This housing plan is the final leg of what Obama has “called a ‘three-legged stool’ aimed at fixing the nation’s crumbling economy”: restoring the health of the job, credit, and housing markets. The $789 billion economic recovery plan signed into law on Tuesday is expected to “create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years.” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “unveiled a restructured plan to aid the ailing financial system” last week with more accountability and “limits on bankers’ bonuses.” Only a combined government effort on all three fronts “has a chance” of turning the tide for the shrinking economy.

From The Progress Report