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DioGuardi: Deficit Spending Will Lead to American "Foreclosure"

By Joyce Gramza

Syracuse, NY –
Republican candidate for United State Senate Joe DioGuardi held a news conference outside a foreclosed home in Syracuse today, hoping to make several points in his challenge to incumbent Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

DioGuardi laid the blame for the foreclosure crisis at the feet of his opponent, along with New York Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo.

He said Gillibrand worked for three years under Cuomo at the federal department of Housing and Urban Development at the time when that agency launched a program to greatly increase home loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Because of Senator Gillibrand and Andrew Cuomo, people were put into those houses that didn't have jobs and didn't have documents," DioGuardi said. "The collapse you're seeing today is rooted in that."

DioGuardi said the government needs to be more aggressive in working with the mortgage industry to keep people in their homes.

He also connected the sub-prime mortgage crisis to dysfunctional government in Albany.

He said that in Onondaga County, 244 homes are in the midst of foreclosure, and added that local "For Sale" signs may be signs of more troubles to come.

"Is that an indication that these houses are now underwater and might be coming into the stream of foreclosures? I don't know yet," he said. "It might be people have just figured out New York is not the place to retire unless they had a lot of savings and have a good pension, they might be at the point where they realize that this is not the place to stay for them."

Dioguardi also used the foreclosure crisis as a metaphor for service on the national debt.

"This mortgage crisis is a microcosm of the larger issue which is going to beset Americans because that national debt will become a mortgage that we won't be able to service, just like some people are not being able to service the mortgage on this house. That's why the bank took it over," DioGuardi said.

Dioguardi said the $12 trillion federal deficit is projected to grow to $20 trillion over the next five to eight years.