SADLY, no one paid attention when the subprime crisis hit the United States in December. The government was paying more attention than to the rising star of Democratic rival Barack Obama, the war in Iraq and the Farm Bill – concerns which are actually fake. The Farm Bill can only benefit the farmers and not the whole people of the United States. But in a subprime crisis, virtually all middle-income and low-income people are affected by it. It was only in January 2008 did the government realize the seriousness of the problem when Asian stock investors bailed out and recognized that something not unfavorable will be happening in the United States economy. The Federal Reserve hastened in cutting interest rates – the largest cut in recent memory. And President Bush drafted an urgent measure – an economic stimulus package – so that he can immediately sign it into law.

Sure enough, that economic stimulus package has been signed into law two days before Valentines Day. It was President Bush’s love gift to the nation sinking from a probable recession. There are many provisions of the new law concerning mortgage. First, it increases the ceiling of mortgage loans allowed to an individual from $165,000 to $700,000. Next, it grants extensions of the schedule of mortgage loan payments. And the last provision is it extends the qualifications of people who can avail of reverse mortgage where paying is only done when the borrower already dies. And then synonymous with the signing of the economic stimulus package, President Bush also ordered a complete overhaul of the system in Fannie Mae which was the subject of a scandal not too long ago in 1996 when executives of the state enterprise were found guilty of diverting mortgage payments into their own personal bonuses. That scandal surely did not contribute to the 2007 subprime crisis but even then, that sort of deed must not be tolerated. After all, Fannie Mae is the largest federal mortgage loan provider in the United States side by side with a similar state-owned enterprise, Freddie Mac.

With the economic stimulus package and with the reforms instituted at Fannie Mae, we can only hope that the economic recession in this beloved country is averted. But it’s not just the federal government which is implementing measures to ward off this potential crisis. Individual states are certainly doing their share. In Arizona, a total of 1.5 million homeowners are summoned for their properties to be assessed for tax declaration purposes. This is certainly not a strategy by the state government of Arizona to impose back to the people to solve an economic crisis but this is just a case of giving credit to where it is supposed to be due. If you have not been evasive in paying your property taxes, then you have nothing to worry about. After the tax assessor in your respective county in Arizona will valuate your property and you don’t agree with the findings, you can contest it within 60 days with written ground of your basis.