Scott Walker Offers Mortgage Debt Plan

Scott Walker. File photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Scott Walker is now offering the country’s financial leaders tips on borrow-friendly mortgage portfolio management.

I find this odd, to say the least, since Walker offers no evidence that the national financial trade groups to which he sent his proposal had solicited his advice.

Did they issue a ‘Reply-Everyone’ RFP, or is this simply Walker creating a record to haul out in the next campaign when he needs to show how he spent his coronavirus isolation time at home?

Did GOP pols get a directive from Free Media Central telling them to throw out advice to people in charge to make it appear as if Republicans, including Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald, are all just brimming with bright ideas?

You can see all of Walker’s words on the issue in a series of March 19 posts on his Twitter feed which includes a link to his Facebook page to his full communication and the names of banking trade groups to which he sent it his advice.

Today, I am asking the financial institutions of our country to announce a plan to allow Americans to defer their mortgage payments for up to six months (this does NOT require action by the government). Read more about this idea here: https://t.co/QAcKUbydMq

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) March 19, 2020

But, seriously, with what credibility and authority does Walker suggest to major lenders how they might change their lending collection policies during a national emergency?

Don’t they have their own people for that?

And we know Walker opposed student loan debt restructuring when he had a chance to implement changes that would have really helped borrowers when he was Governor.

Then there’s the fact that Gov. Walker chose to blow off of a state debt payment.

In fact, he’d did it twice – – regardless of long-run interest costs:

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration this month put off making $101 million in debt payments, driving up costs for taxpayers by more than $2 million in the long run, according to the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office…

The maneuver is often called “scoop and toss” because an existing date is scooped up and tossed into future years. Last year, the Walker administration used the move to put off $108 million in debt payments.

For that matter, should America’s bankers have any reason to listen to a defeated governor who rushed to commit billions of public dollars to Foxconn, whose grand design for a gigantic Wisconsin production and employment facility began falling apart less than a year after the contract with the state was signed?

Anyway, here are the closing paragraphs of Walker’s proposal – – which, coincidentally, doesn’t clearly address the consequence of increased debt interest from his proposal, just as increased interest payments were triggered by the state debt payments he deferred:

Financial institutions in the United States should announce that mortgage payments may be deferred for up to six months. This would provide peace of mind for millions of Americans. Customers with mortgages at these financial institutions could skip their payments for the next six months and then add them on to the end of the loan.

Today, I ask the financial institutions of our country to announce a plan to allow Americans to defer their mortgage payments for up to six months. We are all in this together, and this would dramatically lower the stress level in the United States.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.

Sincerely, Scott Walker 45th Governor of Wisconsin 2011-2019

James Rowen, a former journalist and mayoral staffer in Milwaukee and Madison, writes a regular blog, The Political Environment.