Laurel Walker has a great opinion piece in the paper; it’s well worth reading, simply because it highlights the plight of State Representative Scott Newcomer, who along with his wife stopped making the mortgage payments on their former Elm Grove home last September after moving into a 1.5 million dollar lake home in Delafield. Rep. Newcomer is quick to offer explanations for his failure to make his mortgage payments, but saying, “We tried to do the right thing all along” seems a little far-fetched, because the “right thing” would have involved making his mortgage payments.
Predictably, conservative blogger (and legislative aide extraordinaire) Kevin Fischer rushed to Rep. Newcomer’s defense, simultaneously attacking Laurel Walker for having the gall to criticize one of his fellow conservatives while also blaming poor minorities for the housing crisis:
Where’s the Walker column on those individuals who took out loans they had no business securing that led the country into the housing crisis, many of them poor minorities? Where’s that column full of gleeful jabs? Where’s that piece admonishing thousands of people and lecturing them that they should have known better?
There’s a lot in Fischer’s statement that can be picked apart, starting with the fact that blame for the housing crisis should fall squarely on the shoulders of lenders, whose lending practices led directly to the housing crisis. What’s more, one could argue that instead of admonishing only “poor minorities,” Fischer should instead admonish lenders, while also heaping a little responsibility on Rep. Newcomer and his wife. After all, if they just moved into a new lake home worth 1.5 million dollars, they can’t be hurting that much, can they?
Personally, I feel more sympathy for the poor minorities who are now struggling to keep their homes – or who have lost their homes – than I do for the State Representative and his doctor wife who just moved into their million and a half dollar home in Delafield, but then again, I tend to have more sympathy for the “little guy” than I do for folks who can afford 1.5 million dollar homes but can’t seem to make their mortgage payments on their second home.
As they say in Texas: “big hat no cattle.”
Too many people have paid for their luxury life style with Visa’s money. I remember a quote from Donald Trump, when he owed nearly a billion dollars to various banks after the real estate slump in the 80s. He passed a homeless guy and thought that to himself that the homeless guy had a billion more dollars than he did. In reality, much of this country’s “rich” are no better off than the “poor minorities.” They are just more leveraged.
Zach…are you saying that “poor minorities” do not know how to add and subtract? How about not feeling sorry for anyone who buys things they know they can’t afford? How about feeling sorry for those of us who now have to fund these foreclosures. The lenders should be held responsible but they certainly didn’t hold a gun to anyone’s head and force them to buy a home. In fact…it’s more understandable how Scott Newcomer got stuck with his first home due to the decline in the housing market…thanks to the lenders and people who couldn’t afford the homes they were buying. There’s nothing like taking everyone down with you…hey?
Anon, I’m not saying anything about poor minorities, other than to say they’re not solely to blame for the housing meltdown, contrary to what Kevin Fischer may want to believe.
I’m a conservative but this type of hypocrisy irritates me regardless of which party the individual is a member of. Why on earth would Newcomer expect the bank to take a short while he lives in a $1.5m home? Couldn’t he have come up with the difference between what he owned and the $300k offer by leveraging some of his (apparently substantial) assets? And why does he blame the lender for having the audacity to try to collect the amount of money that HE OWES THEM?
jfsvo, the questions you asked are the same things I’m wondering. I don’t feel bad for Rep. Newcomer because it’s hard to feel bad for a guy who moved into a 1.5 million dollar lake home with his doctor wife only to turn around and stop making payments on his previous residence. If he couldn’t afford to make the payments on two homes, then he shouldn’t have purchased the new house until the old house was sold.
Then again, if he could afford to make the payments on both houses, why didn’t he?
More than anything, I *love* Kevin Fischer’s portrayal of Scott Newcomer and his breadwinning wife as “a young couple falling victim to these tough economic times.” Uh, yeah. Victims don’t build $1.4MM homes and then not bother to pay the mortgage on their other house.
Those people, last I checked, are called victimizers. They are the people who prey on others, not the people who are preyed upon? Or is someone seriously going to tell me that a couple that builds a $1.4MM estate in the suburbs can’t find $2K a month to carry that mortgage on their old, crappy $400K house?
Fischer and Newcomer are both idiots of the first order.
RS, you hit the nail on the head. Newcomer and his wife aren’t victims; their situation is of their own creation.
I don’t consider most of the people faced with foreclosures as victims. I consider the hard working middle class taxpayers who have to bail out all these greedy and/or irresponsible people the victims.
Anon, we’re in complete agreement.
I believe Newcomer should take responsibility for his own bills. I don’t believe he is a victim. If he can’t pay his own bills he shouldn’t have bought the house. His wife is a Ob/Gyn so I am sure they have enough money. His wife did a wrong surgery on me and now I will be in pain for the rest of my life. She also deceived me and convince me that the surgery was the right thing to do. I think they both need a lesson on taking responsibility for there actions.