Boehner unimpressed with Obama housing proposal

President Obama can expect a chilly response from House Republicans to his latest plan to help keep Americans from losing their homes.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) mocked the president’s proposal to expand mortgage refinancing as one in a line of housing efforts from his administration that have failed.

“How many times have we done this?” Boehner exclaimed at a morning news conference, interrupting a reporter before she could even finish her question on the Obama proposal.

“We’ve done this at least four times, where there’s some new government program to help homeowners who have trouble with their mortgages. None of these programs have worked. I don’t know why anyone would think this next idea is going to work.”

Boehner spoke shortly before Obama unveiled his proposal in Virginia.

The plan would let millions of homeowners rewrite their mortgages through federally insured loans. In announcing the program, the president acknowledged that the administration’s previous attempts to help struggling homeowners hadn’t worked as intended.

“All they’ve done is delay the clearing of the market,” Boehner said of the government efforts to revive housing. He said the government should just stay out of the way for now.

“The sooner the market clears and we understand where the prices really are will be the most important thing we can do in order to improve home values around the country,” the Speaker said.

Still, he added that he was “always open to working with the president of the United States. We both have a job to do. If it makes economic sense and it’s fiscally responsible, I’ll take a look at it.”

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