Where is Help for the Homeowners?
DOBBS: Well the House and Senate this week still working on emergency relief for homeowners facing foreclosure. Congress has been debating this legislation since -- are you ready -- since March and over that period of time, nearly a million homes have been foreclosed. And as Kitty Pilgrim now reports, millions more homeowners face foreclosure now.</s>KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The housing relief legislation is dragging on another week. It's been stuck in Congress now for five months. Every day they delay, another 8,000 homeowners are foreclosed on.</s>ALAN BLINDER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I think the thing to say is the problem is getting worse. It's worse now than when the bill should have passed back in March or April and any further delay is just letting the problem fester.</s>PILGRIM: The current bill in the House calls for $300 billion of federal housing authority loan guarantees to help distressed homeowners but that program is voluntary for banks. The worry is banks will only submit their worst mortgages for federal help, the ones that were going to fail any way because homeowners are so far behind. Also included in the legislation basic insurance measures to provide back-up to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if they need federal intervention, the bill also calls for stronger oversight of those institutions. President Bush is threatening to veto the bill if it includes a controversial $4 billion in grants to states to buy out foreclosed properties. Today, the White House saying that money would be in the form of community development block grants, which would then be spent on already foreclosed properties which does nothing to help homeowners but helps lenders. Some economists agree.</s>DAVID JOHN, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: You're going to see an awful lot of sweetheart deals and/or an awful lot of pure and confidence in trying to administer something like this. It's not what cities and states do.</s>PILGRIM: The bill may pass in the House as early as Wednesday and then goes to the Senate after that.</s>PILGRIM: Now, the Congressional estimate is this legislation could help some four to 500,000 people. Secretary Paulson had said many of today's foreclosures are not preventable, putting the number for this year at about two and a half million. Some banking estimates put it at six million over the next few years. Lou.</s>DOBBS: Henry Paulson, does he think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were they preventable? Was Bear Stearns preventable, any number of other banks, investment and commercial banks preventable? I mean what does this man sit around thinking about? He's an absolute -- it's incomprehensible what he is trying to do here.</s>PILGRIM: The sad fact about this legislation, Lou, is that even if they enact it next week, it's going to take months and months and months to kick in, to train the people, to administer these programs...</s>DOBBS: Because these are blithering buffoons (ph), they have no sense of urgency even though two and a half million Americans are facing crisis and foreclosure. There is no urgency. There is no emergency. And some idiot wants to put forward $4 billion? I don't often agree with this administration but in a foreclosure, in a homeowner rescue plan to put in $4 billion, to pick up property that's already been foreclosed upon, it's unbelievable.</s>PILGRIM: The economists we talked to today said it would be a big mistake because it would really lead to a lot of corruption and it would benefit...</s>DOBBS: Oh no, I can't imagine corruption in the housing industry in this country, unimaginable. Kitty, thanks very much -- Kitty Pilgrim. Well as Kitty just reported, millions of middle-class American families are fighting to save their homes. Last month alone, one out of every 500 households received a notice of default or repossession. And for the second straight month more than a quarter million households received foreclosure filings. Nevada is still the hardest hit, foreclosure filings they're up 85 percent over the past year. California had the second highest foreclosure rate; Arizona, Florida and Michigan also in the top five. Well, time now for some of your thoughts on the salmonella outbreak. In this case, W.B. in Las Vegas said: "CNN Headline Monday, the FDA has found salmonella bacteria on a jalapeno imported from Mexico. Sources in the industry tell CNN. You called it, Lou. The FDA under the Bush administration has to be the most incompetent agency in the history of this country." And Don in Montana writes: "Lou, $250 million in damages to U.S. tomato growers? Who's going to pay this bill? Does the FDA realize what they have done to these citizens? I think that the whole FDA needs to be replaced by some competent people." Oh, if we could only find them. And Debbie in Nevada writes: "Do you think possibly the Food and Drug Administration doesn't want to find the source of the outbreak since they don't want to admit the food is from Mexico? I think you pose an intriguing question." We'll have more of your thoughts here later in the forecast. Up next, a stunning court decision in the infamous wardrobe malfunction case from 2004's Super Bowl. Imagine that. More than four years of courtroom drama to get to a resolution. And that isn't even the headline. And breaking America's dependency on foreign oil. Just whose idea is that? Not a politician's or an officeholder's or a lawmaker's. Oil man T. Boone Pickens with a plan and a man who puts his money where his plan is. We'll be right back.