May 9, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the Zillow, Inc. report of a 22 percent increase in negative equity, a measure of homeowners owing more than their properties are worth and an increase in foreclosures for the first quarter of 2011:“Zillow’s data confirms what Case Shiller reported two weeks ago, with home values plummeting to their April 2009 lows and foreclosures once again rising in the first quarter of 2011. We are in a double-dip housing recession. Zillow does not foresee any bottom in housing until 2012, at the earliest. The irony is that we would have already hit the bottom if government had just got out of the way, even if it meant that institutions that bet poorly on housing failed.
“Instead, we wasted more than $2 trillion on the faulty premise that the government could somehow stop the housing bubble from deflating. All of the ‘stimulus’, bailouts, foreclosure ‘prevention’ programs, and homebuyer incentives have failed at their stated objectives. We should have done nothing and let the chips fall where they may, and we’d already be in an economic recovery. Instead, we just have prolonged the recession, created slow-growth stagflation, and added trillions of dollars to the national debt unnecessarily.
“Once and for all, government must get out of the way, and allow this market correction to work itself out. No more ‘stimulus’. No more bailouts. No more foreclosure moratoria. Just get out of the way.”
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