As the New York Times reports:
The Senate on Thursday handed a victory to the banking industry by defeating a Democratic proposal that would have given homeowners in financial trouble greater flexibility to renegotiate the terms of their mortgages.
And Specter was on the wrong side of this one. Daily Kos front-pager Meteor Blades has a good writeup on this: Getting Worse Before Better. Senate and Specter Fail to Help
To be fair, 11 other Senate Dems did the same -- aarrgghh. But check out below where they're from -- except for Carper maybe, none of them are from a state like PA that Obama carried by 11% last fall.
Max Baucus (Mont.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Tom Carper (Del.), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson, (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.)
(Not that we should even buy the stuff about "but I'm from a conservative state, so I have to kiss up to big business"anyway -- would the homeowners in Arkansas who would be helped, and their families and friends, really consider their senators evil liberals for voting for this?)
As Daniel Urevick-Ackelsberg put it well at Young Philly Politics today:
Currently, bankruptcy judges can cram down mortgages for vacation homes. But they can't do the same for distressed people who didn't have the good sense to buy a second house.
Go, Arlen, you progressive hero. The financial services industry needs heroes like you!
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