Rant

I've learned not to read too many news articles regarding politics and government-related financial matters. It usually just frustrates me and makes me frustrated. Today I made the mistake of clicking on this article about our Fed Chair opening his mouth in public again. Here's a quote with the primary idea that I find offensive:

One of the suggestions Bernanke made was for mortgage and other financial companies to reduce the amount of the loan to provide relief to a struggling owner. "Principal reductions that restore some equity for the homeowner may be a relatively more effective means of avoiding delinquency and foreclosure," Bernanke said.

So the basic idea is to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt on loans that are behind and about to go into foreclosure. Meanwhile, the people who have been struggling, scrimping, sacrificing and working extra jobs to pay their mortgage on time every month get a pat on the back and the opportunity to continue struggling to pay off their full debt. They aren't trying to find solutions to the underlying problem, they're trying to band aid the problem to keep voters happy in an election year.

I'm not even talking myself on this one, I know we're weird for paying off our debt. We scrimp and sacrifice by choice because security is a priority for us at this point. But clearly we'd benefit more from not paying our mortgage and letting the government force our lender to knock thousands of dollars off our principal balance. While we're at it, we should not pay the enormous tax bill we owe and let one of those absurd lawyers on TV settle our tax debt for pennies on the dollar. Seems like not being responsible pays a lot better than actually following the rules.

(Disclaimer: I'm sure getting our taxes back didn't contribute to my level of irritation over this. It's not like we owe the IRS more than half of what we owe on the house, due in part to the fact that we worked so hard to make extra money to pay off the darn house!)