Terrifying Chart o' the Day: It Was the Plan All Along

...yesterday, in Denver, I signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will create or save -- (applause.) The act will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years -- including 70,000 right here in Arizona, right here -- (applause) -- doing the work America needs done. And we're also going to work to stabilize, repair and reform our financial system to get credit flowing again to families and businesses.

And we will pursue the housing plan I'm outlining today. And through this plan, we will help between 7 and 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages so they can afford -- avoid foreclosure. And we're not just helping homeowners at risk of falling over the edge; we're preventing their neighbors from being pulled over that edge, too -- as defaults and foreclosures contribute to sinking home values, and failing local businesses, and lost jobs. --President Barack Obama, 18 February 2009

Interesting how the media -- not to mention Democrats, but I repeat myself -- never go back and examine the results of their policy prescriptions. Perhaps that's because their consistent track record of failure is demoralizing, humiliating and revealing. In any event, here are the actual results of President Obama's two-and-a-half years of centrally managing the mortgage market.

One word: catastrophic. Despite all of the Soviet-style exercises in central planning, all of the endless tax credits, incentives, and authoritarian lever-pulling of the Left, they've actually made things worse, not better.

Here are some of the programs listed under the government's MakingHomeAffordable.com site (888-995-HOPE):

• Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)
• Principal Reduction Alternative (PRA)
• Second Lien Modification Program (2MP)
• FHA Home Affordable Modification Program (FHA-HAMP)
• USDA's RHS Special Loan Servicing
• Veteran's Administration Home Affordable Modification (VA-HAMP)
• Home Affordable Unemployment Program (UP)
• Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund for the Hardest Hit Housing Markets (HHF)
• Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP)
• FHA Refinance for Borrowers in Negative Equity (FHA Short Refi)
• Treasury/FHA Second Lien Program (FHA2LP)
• Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund for the Hardest Hit Housing Markets (HHF)
• Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA)

Not to mention the billions wasted on housing in the "Stimulus" package including the Tax Credit Exchange Program (“TCEP”), the HUD Tax Credit Assistance Program (“TCAP”, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).

Tens of billions of dollars wasted on useless programs that are more payoffs and wealth transfers to political cronies than legitimate functions of a constitutional federal government.

And the President is now proposing yet another foreclosure fix -- opening up the HARP program to everyone. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything this president has touched appears to have turned to fecal matter. Which, if Professors Cloward and Piven can be believed, was the plan all along.