The Hispanic vote
¡Voten por mi!
Latino voters are turning away from John McCain. That’s a symptom of a bigger problem for Republicans
ONE of the dilemmas facing those who spoke at the National Council of La Raza this week was how to pronounce the Hispanic activist group’s name. The first syllable of the word raza (race, or people) requires a tricky, un-English tongue movement. Some of the anglophone speakers who tried it sounded as though they were about to choke. John McCain made no attempt at all, pronouncing the “R” like the last letter of “Budweiser”. Barack Obama, by contrast, breezed through the word as if he had grown up eating sopaipillas. Then, to show off, he did it again.
Although less numerous than black voters, Latino voters may tip this year’s presidential election. They make up 12% of the electorate in Colorado and Nevada, 14% in Florida and 37% in New Mexico (see map). In 2004 George Bush won all four of those states by five percentage points or less, and all four of them are regarded as key battlefields this time around. Florida, as the fourth-biggest state in the union and electorally one of the closest, is a place where the large Hispanic vote could well prove decisive: Jeb Bush, the president’s brother and the governor of Florida at the time of the 2000 and 2004 elections, has a Hispanic wife and helped boost the Republican’s share of the Latino vote there. But he is now gone.
Across the border states and beyond, Spanish-language radio stations are pushing listeners to become citizens and register to vote, apparently to some effect. Last week the Department of Homeland Security revealed that 122,258 Mexicans became citizens in 2007—up 59% from 2005.
Another difference between Hispanic and black voters (who the candidates also addressed this week, at a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) is that neither party can depend on them. George Bush keenly courted Latinos, in part by appealing to their socially conservative instincts. He won at least 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004. “I know how powerful this community is,” said Mr Obama on July 13th. “And, by the way, so does John McCain.”
Until recently it seemed as though the latter might be able to match or even exceed Mr Bush’s haul. A series of unpatriotic, much-televised statements by Mr Obama’s pastor had greatly offended a group that came to America willingly. Hillary Clinton had won the great majority of Hispanic votes in the Democratic primaries. Mr McCain represents a heavily Hispanic state and has often called for America’s roughly 12m illegal immigrants to be treated sensibly and humanely.
Unfortunately, though, Mr McCain is a Republican. Hispanics share the general current contempt for Mr Bush’s party, and have a few grievances of their own. It was, after all, Republicans who wrecked a bill last year that would have allowed most illegal immigrants to become citizens. It was Republicans who ran television ads in 2006 comparing labourers who stole across the Mexican border to terrorists. As the other candidates tacked to the right during the primaries, the Arizona senator at first hesitated and then seemed to follow. In January he was asked whether he still supported the immigration bill he had helped craft. No, he said.
McCain’s mountain to climb
These days pollsters put Mr Obama 30 points ahead of Mr McCain among Hispanic voters. Largely because of them, he has opened a small lead in Colorado and New Mexico (plus a huge one in solidly Democratic California). Latinos have even helped Mr Obama close to within ten points in the Republican redoubt of Texas. Mr McCain had the chance to reverse the slide this week—the third time in just over a fortnight that he had addressed a big Hispanic organisation. He not only failed to do so, but at times seemed to concede the Latino vote. “I know many of you are Democrats, regrettably,” he told 2,000 listeners in San Diego.
Whereas Mr Obama promised quick action on immigration reform, the Arizona senator simply asked the audience to trust that he would get around to it once the border has been secured, which everyone knows will take a long time if it ever happens at all. He expressed sympathy for illegal immigrants in the vaguest terms (“We cannot forget the humanity God commands of us”). He answered an anguished question about workplace immigration raids by explaining, rather loftily, that this was a symptom of a broader problem rather than a problem in itself.
The crowd, which had cheered Mr Obama, listened politely. That may not worry the Republican candidate. He was not just addressing Latinos—and nor was he simply trimming to the nativists who lurked outside with signs condemning “Juan McAmnesty”. The average white American grudgingly concedes that it is neither possible nor wise to deport 12m people. But he is angry with illegal immigrants for flouting the law, and wants the border fixed. So do many Latinos, particularly those (like Florida’s Cubans) whose right to live in America has never been questioned.
In his pursuit of Hispanic voters, Mr Obama is straying to the left of mainstream opinion. His speech on July 13th hinted at a distaste for workplace raids and did not mention the many illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. During the primary race he expressed support for a plan by Eliot Spitzer, then the governor of New York, to allow illegals to apply for driving licences. This is the sort of thing that rattles independent voters and fires up the Republican base.
Yet Mr Obama’s strength among Hispanic voters does not just have to do with his position on immigration. Nor does Mr McCain’s weakness have to do with his stance on the subject. Much of the talk at the National Council of La Raza was about issues like foreclosure, school dropout rates and health insurance. Downstairs, in the convention hall, one of the busiest stalls offered advice on diabetes. Latinos worry more than most about these things, but they are not the only people who worry about them. Mr McCain’s real problem is that he has so far failed to convince Americans, Hispanic or otherwise, that he can come up with solutions to their rather ordinary problems.
The coming days
The week ahead
An effort to breath life into the Doha round of trade talks, and other news
•TRADE ministers, hoping to make a breakthrough in the interminable Doha round of global trade talks, will gather at the World Trade Organisation’s headquarters beside Lake Geneva, on Monday July 21st. Their aim is to agree on a plan for liberalising trade in farm products and industrial goods, and to look for signs of compromise on services. The WTO’s director-general, Pascal Lamy, reckons the odds of success are more than 50%. That, regrettably, is probably an over optimistic assessment.
For background see article
•INDIA’S battered coalition government faces the challenge of a vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday July 22nd. The vote is the result of the desertion from the ruling coalition of Manmohan Singh of Communists who are opposed to a deal struck with America that would have supplied civil nuclear technology to a country desperate to boost its power-generating capacity. The Communists reckon that the deal hands too much control of Indian infrastructure to “imperialists”. The vote is set to be close: a loss for the government would spark an early general election.
•AMERICA’S treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, will seek approval from Congress for the extension of the Treasury’s credit lines to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. On Wednesday July 23rd the House of Representatives will vote on a bill expected to include help for the pair. He might even seek to buy shares in the two American mortgage giants, which have suffered a loss of confidence that has sent their share prices tumbling. The authorities hope that confidence can be restored and are keen to avoid nationalisation, which would bring the whole of Fannie’s and Freddie’s debt onto the federal government’s balance sheet.
For background see article
•THE Chinese government has ordered the closure of 40 factories in Tianjin, a port city just east of Beijing, from Friday 25th July to September 20th in a bid to improve air quality in the capital ahead of the Olympic games. Tangshan, an industrial city also east of Beijing, will this month shut nearly 300 factories and Beijing’s authorities have also introduced a scheme to cut traffic by allowing cars with odd and even number plates to use the city’s roads on alternate days.
Commentary by Caroline Baum
July 18 (Bloomberg) -- ``When I picked up my newspaper yesterday, I thought I woke up in France,'' said Senator Jim Bunning, Republican from Kentucky, who in a former life threw curve balls from the mound as a professional baseball player.
Bunning was conveying his reaction to learning that the U.S. Treasury extended a lifeline to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Sunday evening, before Asian markets opened.
``It turns out socialism is alive and well in America,'' Bunning said in his opening statement at a July 15 Senate Banking Committee hearing.
He has a point. The Banking Committee was gathered to hear testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the state of the economy (not good) and, immediately following, more testimony from Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Securities and Exchange Committee Chairman Chris Cox on the latest developments in financial markets (also not good) and regulators' latest initiatives to make them better.
Cox told the committee he was launching a jihad against rumor-mongers and short-sellers. The SEC subpoenaed internal communications from Wall Street firms and hedge funds to determine if there was any hanky-panky going on in connection with the dive in the share prices of Bear Stearns Cos. earlier this year and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The securities industry regulator introduced new requirements for anyone looking to sell short the stock of 19 financial companies. The new measures will expire in 30 days if not extended. (Everyone who thinks they won't be extended, raise your hand. Good. We can move on.)
Shoot the Speculators
Cox's initiative followed, by a few weeks, a series of congressional investigations into evil oil speculators, whose machinations were said to be responsible for the 50 percent increase in crude oil prices this year.
``Congress wanted to go after the oil companies,'' says Gerry O'Driscoll, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. ``But they found that the public wanted them to pump more oil.''
No wonder Bunning thought he was in France. The U.S. is supposed to be a beacon of capitalism for the rest of the world. Our leaders preach the merits of free markets to developing countries looking to emerge from poverty. They look askance when foreign monetary authorities, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, intervene to support their domestic equity markets. Government ownership of private companies, Asian ``crony capitalism'' and European-style corporatism, with business and state interests aligned, are frowned upon.
Case-by-Case Capitalism
``We want free-market mechanisms as long as everything is doing fine,'' says Jim Glassman, senior U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. ``In times of crisis, we want to keep market mechanisms in check. If shorting a company is a bad idea, reality will prove it wrong.''
A week ago, with the shares of Fannie and Freddie trading in single digits, down as much as 80 percent since the start of the year, the U.S. government proposed emergency measures to rescue the two government-sponsored enterprises, which own or guarantee $5.2 trillion of the $12 trillion of mortgages in the U.S.
The GSEs gained access to the Fed's discount window (always room for two more). They got bigger, albeit unspecified, lines of credit from the Treasury, a source of contention with Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, who wants something in return for the ``blank check.'' And if the going gets really tough, Treasury can buy stock in the two companies.
Epistles are already being written about the death of capitalism. Liberals are saying I-told-you-so, brandishing examples of market failure.
More Regulation
How do we know the market failed if we don't allow it to work? Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin.
The U.S. has spent the last 30 years dismantling some of the onerous regulations enacted during the Great Depression. Entire industries have been deregulated. The Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking was repealed. Where rules still existed, financial innovation -- the Eurodollar and Eurobond markets -- found a way around them.
It's a foregone conclusion that the country is headed back in the other direction. The only question is how far. The Nasdaq bubble gave us Sarbanes-Oxley. Now that the housing collapse has devastated construction and finance industries, government can take up some of the slack. (Who better to staff new regulatory agencies than out-of-work Wall Street types, who know the ins and outs of the rules?)
The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which is now in a House-Senate conference committee, establishes ``a new independent regulator'' for the GSEs that would set capital standards and beef up risk management.
Conflict of Interest
What if said regulator finds the GSEs inadequately capitalized? One alternative would be to shrink their huge balance sheets.
But wait! Congress needs Fannie and Freddie to gobble up all the mortgages banks are willing to make to prevent a complete implosion in the housing market. (That new regulator is being unnecessarily tough on poor Fan and Fred.)
Maybe Treasury should start a taxpayer-funded sovereign wealth fund and buy all the bad loans -- even foreclosed homes -- no one wants. In retrospect, the Resolution Trust Corp., created in 1989 to dispose of savings and loans' bad assets, looks like a model of efficiency compared with some of the proposals being bandied about today.
And no, none of them are solutions for a market failure. You can't whine about the death of capitalism when government is putting a gun to its head.
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hasn't endorsed any specific plan for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, a government spokesman said, a day after a magazine report that he backed Barack Obama's proposal.
Al-Maliki supports a ``general vision'' of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and has not backed a plan by Obama, the presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, for a 16- month withdrawal window, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an e-mailed statement in Baghdad today.
Al-Maliki was quoted in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine published on its Web site yesterday as saying Obama's plan is ``the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.''
Comments al-Maliki made to the magazine were ``misunderstood and mistranslated'' and were not ``conveyed accurately,'' al- Dabbagh said in the statement.
Remarks made by the prime minister or any member of the Iraqi government ``should not be understood as support to any U.S. presidential candidate,'' the statement said.
Obama, 46, has said he would remove U.S. combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010, shifting some brigades to Afghanistan. The Illinois senator will visit Iraq this week for the first time since 2006 as part of an overseas trip aimed at countering criticism from Republican rival John McCain that he lacks national-security experience.
150,000 Soldiers
McCain, his party's presumptive presidential nominee, opposes Obama's timetable for withdrawal. McCain, who was critical of President George W. Bush's early management of the Iraq war, supported the increase in U.S. troops ordered by Bush more than a year ago. Obama opposed putting more troops into the country.
The U.S. has cut its presence to about 150,000 troops in Iraq from more than 160,000 at their peak late last year. The intensity of fighting has waned since March while the number of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq in May was 19, the lowest monthly total since the start of the war.
``The only reason that the conversation about reducing troop levels in Iraq is happening is because John McCain challenged the failed Rumsfeld strategy in Iraq and argued for the surge strategy that is responsible for the successes we've achieved and which Barack Obama opposed,'' McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said yesterday in an e-mailed statement, referring to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Bush and Maliki have agreed that a ``general time horizon'' is needed for the reduction of U.S. combat troops in Iraq, according to the White House. The two leaders, speaking July 18 by video conference, agreed that improving conditions in Iraq should permit setting goals for further drawdowns of U.S. forces, spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement that day.
McCain adviser Gramm leaves campaign
Former lawmaker from Texas resigns after 'nation of whiners' comment
NEW YORK - Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm resigned Friday from his role as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign co-chairman, hoping to quiet the uproar that followed his comments that Americans had become a "nation of whiners" whose constant complaints about the U.S. economy show they are in a "mental recession."Gramm, a past presidential candidate, made the remarks more than a week ago. McCain immediately distanced himself from the comments, but they brought a steady stream of criticism just as McCain is trying to show he can help steer the country past its current financial troubles.
Gramm said in a statement late Friday that he is stepping down to "end this distraction."
"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country," Gramm said. "That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country. To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as co-chair of the McCain campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters."
Gramm made the comment to The Washington Times and later explained that he was talking about the nation's leaders not the American people. Democrats claimed at the time that the Gramm comments showed that McCain is out of touch with voters' concerns over high gas prices, the struggling housing industry and the shaky economy in general.
The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Gramm's departure will make little difference to McCain's economic policies.
"The question for John McCain isn't whether Phil Gramm will continue as chairman of his campaign, but whether he will continue to keep the economic plan that Gramm authored and that represents a continuation of the policies that have failed American families for the last eight years," said Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan.
By Tarek Al-Issawi
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hasn't endorsed any specific plan for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, a government spokesman said, a day after a magazine report that he backed Barack Obama's proposal.
Al-Maliki supports a ``general vision'' of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and has not backed a plan by Obama, the presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, for a 16- month withdrawal window, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an e-mailed statement in Baghdad today.
Al-Maliki was quoted in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine published on its Web site yesterday as saying Obama's plan is ``the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.''
Comments al-Maliki made to the magazine were ``misunderstood and mistranslated'' and were not ``conveyed accurately,'' al- Dabbagh said in the statement.
Remarks made by the prime minister or any member of the Iraqi government ``should not be understood as support to any U.S. presidential candidate,'' the statement said.
Obama, 46, has said he would remove U.S. combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010, shifting some brigades to Afghanistan. The Illinois senator will visit Iraq this week for the first time since 2006 as part of an overseas trip aimed at countering criticism from Republican rival John McCain that he lacks national-security experience.
150,000 Soldiers
McCain, his party's presumptive presidential nominee, opposes Obama's timetable for withdrawal. McCain, who was critical of President George W. Bush's early management of the Iraq war, supported the increase in U.S. troops ordered by Bush more than a year ago. Obama opposed putting more troops into the country.
The U.S. has cut its presence to about 150,000 troops in Iraq from more than 160,000 at their peak late last year. The intensity of fighting has waned since March while the number of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq in May was 19, the lowest monthly total since the start of the war.
``The only reason that the conversation about reducing troop levels in Iraq is happening is because John McCain challenged the failed Rumsfeld strategy in Iraq and argued for the surge strategy that is responsible for the successes we've achieved and which Barack Obama opposed,'' McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said yesterday in an e-mailed statement, referring to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Bush and Maliki have agreed that a ``general time horizon'' is needed for the reduction of U.S. combat troops in Iraq, according to the White House. The two leaders, speaking July 18 by video conference, agreed that improving conditions in Iraq should permit setting goals for further drawdowns of U.S. forces, spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement that day.
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Home sales in the U.S. probably declined in June as the housing slump headed for a third year, undermining the economy and prompting businesses and consumers to trim spending, economists said before reports this week.
Combined sales of new and existing homes dropped 1.3 percent last month, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Orders for durable goods, products meant to last several years, probably fell 0.3 percent.
The biggest housing recession in a generation, now being exacerbated by a tightening in credit as financial losses spread, threatens to stall economic growth. The surge in raw-material costs and slowing demand will likely prompt companies to keep reducing investment in a bid to protect profits.
``Stress in financial markets and curtailment in lending are going to make it more difficult to buy homes,'' said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York. ``Manufacturers that produce for homebuilders or homeowners are being hurt by the slump in housing.''
The National Association of Realtors' report on sales of existing homes is due July 24. Purchases declined to a 4.93 million annual pace from 4.99 million in May, according to the survey median. Sales reached a 4.89 million pace in April, the fewest since comparable records began in 1999.
A day later, the Commerce Department is forecast to report that sales of new houses dropped to an annual pace of 503,000 from 512,000 in May, according to survey estimates. Sales of existing and new homes are down 35 percent from their July 2005 peak.
Construction Drops
Reacting to the weak sales, builders in June began work on the fewest single-family homes since 1991, the Commerce Department reported last week. That signals that home construction will continue to weigh on the economy after subtracting from growth since the first quarter of 2006.
More Americans are walking away from their homes as property values tumble and borrowing costs on adjustable-rate mortgages reset higher. Bank seizures increased a record 171 percent from a year ago and foreclosure filings rose 53 percent in June, RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said July 10.
Stricter lending regulations and the drop in home prices make it harder for Americans to tap home equity for extra cash. Consumer spending in the first quarter grew at the slowest pace since the 2001 recession and is likely to keep slowing later this year, according to economists surveyed this month by Bloomberg.
Bernanke's View
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke last week abandoned his June assessment that the threat of an economic downturn had diminished, telling lawmakers in semiannual testimony in Washington that there were ``significant downside risks to the outlook for growth.''
The index of leading economic indicators may have fallen in June for the first time in four months, economists forecast a report tomorrow will show. The Conference Board's gauge dropped 0.1 percent after increasing by the same amount in May, signaling growth is likely to slow over the next three to six months.
The report on durable goods, due from the Commerce Department on July 25, is also projected to show that orders excluding transportation equipment fell 0.2 percent in June, according to the Bloomberg survey.
Carmakers in particular have been battered. Sales of cars and light trucks fell to an annual pace of 13.6 million units in June, the lowest since 1993, according to industry figures.
General Motors Corp., buffeted by three years of losses, will hasten reductions in truck production and planned closings of four truck plants, Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson said on July 15.
``Lack of demand warrants'' accelerating the cutbacks, he said in a press conference in Detroit. ``The market is even softer'' than GM projected in June, when the reductions were first announced. ``We need to act now.''
Also on July 25, the University of Michigan/Reuters final survey of consumer sentiment for July may show confidence dropped to a 28-year low.
Bloomberg Survey
=================================================================
Release Period Prior Median
Indicator Date Value Forecast
=================================================================
LEI MOM% 7/21 June 0.1% -0.1%
Initial Claims ,000's 7/24 20-Jul 366 380
Cont. Claims ,000's 7/24 13-Jul 3122 3190
Exist Homes Mlns 7/24 June 4.99 4.93
Exist Homes MOM% 7/24 May 2.0% -1.2%
Durables Orders MOM% 7/25 June 0.0% -0.3%
Durables Ex-Trans MOM% 7/25 June -0.8% -0.2%
U of Mich Conf. Index 7/25 July F 56.6 56.3
New Home Sales ,000's 7/25 June 512 503
New Home Sales MOM% 7/25 June -2.5% -1.8%
=================================================================
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson predicted the Bush administration will prevail in its effort to convince Congress to pass legislation that would allow the government to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
``I'm very optimistic that we're going to get what we need from Congress,'' Paulson said on the CBS News ``Face the Nation'' program. ``Congress understands how important these institutions are.''
Paulson is pushing Congress to authorize the Treasury to purchase equity stakes in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which account for about half of the $12 trillion mortgage market, and expand government-backed credit lines to them. He also said he wants the legislation to include a measure that gives ``real teeth'' to the companies' regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
``We're very close to getting reform,'' he said in a separate interview on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program. ``These are very important organizations -- they have a very important role to play -- and we need to make sure that they have access to adequate capital to get through this period.''
The economy is in a ``challenging time'' and probably will have ``slow growth'' for ``months'' as higher oil prices prolong the slowdown, Paulson said on CBS. The banking system is ``sound'' and regulators are being ``vigilant,'' though some banks are starting to struggle, he said.
Speech on U.S. Economy
The Treasury secretary is scheduled to spend the next two days in New York for meetings with executives from financial services companies and to give a speech July 22 on the condition of the U.S. economy and capital markets.
Regulators are aiming to resuscitate investor confidence in the firms after their shares this month fell to the lowest in more than 17 years on concern they may have insufficient capital to survive the collapse of the housing market.
``Their regulator has said they have adequate capital,'' Paulson told CNN. ``There's some worry, some concern in the capital markets, and that is why we came in with a plan to assure the markets that there will be adequate capital for them to meet all their needs.''
Under Paulson's proposal, Treasury would increase Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's credit lines from $2.25 billion each, buy shares in them if needed and give the Federal Reserve a role in setting their capital requirements.
`Central Role'
President George W. Bush, in his weekly radio address, yesterday said the two play a ``central role'' in the housing system and are needed to continue providing credit ``during this time of stress in the financial markets.''
Lawmakers from both parties have sought to put constraints on the plan on concerns it may put American taxpayers at risk while giving Treasury unprecedented authority.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, last week said he intends to tie the Treasury plan to the federal debt limit, capping the amount of taxpayer funding officials could use to help finance the mortgage firms.
Senate Banking Committee member Charles Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, sent a letter to Paulson last week asking why taxpayers should extend ``an unlimited line of credit'' to the companies while their chief executives ``continue to make multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses?''
Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, 49, was paid $11.6 million in salary, stock awards and other compensation last year. Freddie Mac Chief Richard Syron, 64, received $18.3 million in total pay last year.
House Democrats plan to include in their bill a measure that would grant almost $4 billion to communities to purchase foreclosed homes, a measure Bush has threatened to veto.
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