Mortgage Rate News

Yet another Bush Administration official bites the dust. This time, it is embattled Housing Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson. He is stepping down as HUD chief, effective April 18, 2008. The New York Times reports that controversy has followed Jackson since his appointment:

In 2004, less than two months after his confirmation as housing secretary, Mr. Jackson told a House panel that he believed poverty “is a state of mind, not a condition.” Two years later, he said in a speech that he had canceled a contract for a company after its president told him that he did not like Mr. Bush. Mr. Jackson later said he had made the story up.

The latest problem is to do with an FBI investigation of whether he has been favoring friends with valuable government housing contracts, rather than going through a government approved process of awarding such contracts.

Johnson did not state reasons for his resignation, giving the old “personal and family matters” standby. He has been an integral part of addressing the current financial crisis (you know, the one instigated by the subprime market crash). However, the scandal-ridden Bush Administration doesn’t seem to have the high level of tolerance it had in 2004, right after President Bush won re-election.
This is not the only big news to come from the Bush Administration today. Even as Johnson announced his resignation, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled a series of proposals that he claimed will increase Wall Street regulation. The measures, however, are considered fairly toothless and Congressional Democrats are already vowing to draft legislation that makes Wall Street regulation stronger.

It is worth noting, however, that the latest Bush Administration proposals do nothing to address the mortgage market and subprime securities problems that set off the current crisis.

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Bush Administration, Bush Administration scandal, subprime market crash