Hilzoy passes on the hopeful news that mortgage cramdowns are making progress in the house. Tanta, who I only learned of after she passed away, has a nice explanation of cramdowns -- basically, what happens is that a bankruptcy judge reduces a homeowner's mortgage debt. This is how bankruptcy works in general, but when the laws were written, mortgage industry lobbyists got them to put in a special exception on home mortgages, so that the value of those debts couldn't be reduced. So now we need to pass new legislation to allow judges to do this.
Until reading Tanta's post, I hadn't heard of the Mortgage Bankers' Association. They have an anti-cramdown page on their site. It would be sort of comical in how it tries to cover up the stupidity of their arguments with sheer corporate blandness, if they weren't running an incumbent-buying PAC that threw around a million dollars or more in each of the last three elections. (When Republicans were in power, they gave mostly to Republicans. Now they're giving 55% of their money to Democrats.) Especially if your representatives are getting money from these people, you might want to call up and check out their position on letting bankruptcy judges lower homeowners' mortgage debt.
One final note. In this economic environment, "Mortgage Bankers' Association" competes with "Puppy Sodomizers' Association" and "People For Giving Mike Tyson An ICBM" on the list of groups with the most politically terrible names. If it looks like a member of Congress took their money in exchange for a vote against poor homeowners' interests, that will not go over well.