Protesters to hold 750 tea parties

Several Republican lawmakers are expected at 750 Boston Tea Party-styled protests to mark the day federal taxes are due.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is attending a party in Bakersfield, Calif., while House Budget Committee ranking member Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will join protestors in Madison, Wis.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is said to be attending an event in New York, and other lawmakers could attend parties from coast to coast, though organizers said they couldn’t say how many lawmakers would show up.

{mosads}Don’t expect too many Democrats to join them. While the events highlighting government spending and excessive taxation are notionally bipartisan, President Obama and congressional Democrats will come up for plenty of criticism.

Obama himself plans to hold an event Wednesday highlighting the tax cuts included in the stimulus bill, which many Americans are now seeing in their paychecks.

Some groups are targeting Blue Dog Democrats for criticism, arguing that as fiscal conservatives they should have voted against the economic stimulus package and budget resolutions that would lead to wider deficits. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) will be the target of a Bay Area event.

The events are inspired in part by a CNBC anchor’s diatribe against Obama.

Organizers say they’ve stirred so much interest their servers have crashed.

“We have had to change servers for our website three times due to high traffic it is receiving,” said Eric Odom, the administrator of a national Tax Day Tea Party website. “Lately, we have had 90,000 unique visits a day, and to be honest it is quite overwhelming.”

It’s difficult to determine, however, where the hype ends and whether the parties suggest any growing discontent with Obama’s policies. According to Gallup’s daily tracking numbers, more than 60 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance and a growing number are hopeful about the economy.

Ian Swanson and Betsy King

Many left out of low mortgage rates

Many Americans cannot take advantage of historically low mortgage rates touted by President Obama because their homes are now worth less than their loans.

As a result, thousands of homeowners who otherwise might be able to refinance, putting more money in their pockets and stimulating the economy, are out of luck.

About 8.3 million mortgage holders, or 20 percent of all mortgaged properties, have negative equity, or are “underwater,” and that number is likely to grow, according to California-based housing analyst First American CoreLogic.

Obama’s refinancing program only applies to those whose loans run up to 105 percent of the value of their homes. Since 2.2 million mortgages are 125 percent or more than the value of the underlying property, that leaves out millions who are much deeper in debt.

A second loan program touted by the Obama administration could help people with higher levels of negative equity, but it isn’t perfect either. Five of the states with the most people underwater — California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Nevada — also have some of the toughest local economies. Three of those states have double-digit unemployment, and the other two, Ohio and Florida, are above 9 percent.

Obama’s loan program can help reduce homeowners’ monthly payments, but if those loan holders are earning less money, it won’t do much in the long run.

An unknown number of homeowners have more than 105 percent negative equity because of the national housing slump but are able to make their monthly payments. Those homeowners are ineligible for help under either program, and as a result are unlikely to refinance.

Sam Khater of CoreLogic warns things may get worse before they get better.

CoreLogic studied local housing busts, and found that it generally takes three years for markets to bottom out, and another two to seven years to reach their earlier par.

“We expect home prices to decline through the end of 2010, but at a slower pace,” he said. CoreLogic doesn’t expect prices to start to recover until early 2011.

Of course, there may be improvements in the economy before housing values get much better. And none of this should suggest that low interest rates and plunging home values aren’t having some impact on the market. Earlier this month, Fannie Mae reported its largest month of refinancing since 2003.

Still, it suggests the glimmers of hope Obama sees in the economy are still obscured by some pretty dark clouds over the housing market, which is where this recession began.

Bernanke defends Fed

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday defended the unprecedented interventions taken by the Fed to grapple with the worst recession in decades.

While Congress has approved a nearly $800 billion stimulus package to grow the economy and the Treasury Department has spent much of a $700 billion rescue package for financial firms, those efforts are actually dwarfed by the Fed.

Besides lowering short-term interest rates to just above zero, the Fed has spent trillions as part of an effort to prevent an even worse recession.

Bernanke acknowledged the Fed went far beyond conventional monetary policy. “In doing so, we have demonstrated that the Fed’s toolkit remains potent, even though the federal funds rate is close to zero and thus cannot be reduced further,” he said, according to prepared remarks.

Bernanke did not back away from a strong Fed. Noting fears that the Fed’s aggressive actions could spur on inflation once the economy recovers, Bernanke says he is prepared to take actions to counter inflationary growth.

“I can assure you that monetary policymakers are fully committed to acting as needed to withdraw on a timely basis the extraordinary support now being provided to the economy, and we are confident in our ability to do so,” he said.