This top-down bailout effort is a departure from Democratic philosophy

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I don't actually claim to know just how effective it would be, but I'm still stuck on the notion that providing funds to help folks avoid foreclosure would be the most effective use of the billions of dollars republicans have proposed to go to the lending institutions in the form of incentives.

If we don't find a way to stem the growing, record tide of foreclosures, there won't be enough support (financial or otherwise) for the government to productively deal with all of the excess debt they're assuming from these failing institutions. I'm thinking that lenders won't be able to manage enough of the rising debt with these debt-shifting tactics they're being encouraged to turn to in order to make any meaningful difference in encouraging them to make more money available to lenders.

Anyway, it's just a backward approach for Congress to make it easier for folks to borrow before the government does all it can to help the actual income of these Americans increase and help improve their ability to handle these loans they're expecting them to turn to.