Mortgage plan leaves many in the cold

To the editor:

I am one of the many with an underwater mortgage. I am presently retired, but I am still current on my mortgage payments.

At this time I have only one objective: to refinance my mortgage at a more favorable interest rate.

But this is absolutely impossible, and there is no government program, such as the Home Affordable Refinance Program, that will assist me because my mortgage is owned by a bank, and not the federally backed Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

The logical question then becomes: Why is the government assisting only those taxpayers with mortgages owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac? What about the rest of us with bank-owned mortgages?

I have two options at this time:

-- Stop making mortgage payments and attempt to renegotiate my interest rate with the bank to preclude foreclosure.

-- Walk away from my mortgage.

Both options are looking increasingly good to me, and I will be just another statistic.

Government programs that are highly selective in benefiting only a subset of taxpayers are simply another "smoke and mirror" tactic by the current administration in Washington.

Jeff Scanlon

Las Vegas

Easy math

To the editor:

I take exception to Sen. Harry Reid's recent comments about government and civilian employment.

Say you have two people making $100,000 a year. Each pays taxes of $30,000. To the U.S. Treasury, the civilian worker provides a net gain of $30,000 and the government employee amounts to a net loss of $70,000.

When government employment keeps going up, the taxpayers are getting hosed. I do not think our distinguished senator understands this.

John D. Dooley

Henderson