Rare moments come along in our high-tech, fast-paced society when a community can come together and throw all differences aside. They come and go, sometimes without notice.
Fortunately, we seized such a moment on Wednesday; not only did people notice, all of the nation’s eyes were on us when President Barack Obama spoke in Mesa.
People of all ages, ethnicities and political views were at the event. On Sunday night, I talked with several different women, each of whom were camping out to get a ticket to the event. The women came from different parts of the globe. One of the women emigrated from Switzerland, another from Indonesia; the third was African-American.
These three women view the world through very different paradigms and have various perspectives on just about any issue.
Regardless, they realize this is their country and believe that we are better than our current situation. That is the belief that motivated several thousand people to sleep in a high-school parking lot in hopes of getting a ticket to see Obama speak.
These people gathered to hear Obama specifically reveal a foreclosure plan. According to The Arizona Republic, the Phoenix area has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Last year, the Valley of the Sun saw 40,000 home foreclosures. It seems the Obama administration wisely chose an apt backdrop for the speech.
Obama’s plan includes several components. One part of the plan lets homeowners who have their current mortgages through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to refinance, while another component of the plan will “create new incentives so that lenders could work with borrowers to modify the terms of sub-prime loans at risk of default and foreclosure.” Obama also addressed the future in this plan; he plans on keeping mortgage rates as low as possible for potential homeowners.
The new plan will cost $275 billion, $200 of which will help out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed “institutions that guarantee home loans for millions of middle-class families.”
The debate is not about what should be done, or whether this should pass. Both of those things have already happened. The debate is about how we will deal with the consequences. Will we move forward together, or lay blame?
President Obama came to Arizona, even though he did not win this state in last November’s election. It seems he is putting his political agenda aside for the country’s interest.
It is no longer about electoral votes or red versus blue. Now it is about the red, white and blue.
Reach Andrew at andrew.hedlund@asu.edu.
