The obligatory "New York guy unhappy with federal relief program" clip

To cleanse the palate, via Mediaite, watching this makes me feel like I’m witnessing the birth of the tea party 2.0.

Well, 3.0. Those anti-lockdown pox parties at the state capitols count as 2.0, I suppose.

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Here’s comedian Vic Dibitetto venting about the new CARES Act in a rant that’s gone viral today. Two quibbles with what he says. First, it’s true that the $1,200 stimulus checks most people are getting aren’t enough to pay their bills, but remember that it’s $1,200 per adult, not per family. A couple gets $2,400 plus $500 for each child they have. On top of that, beefed-up federal unemployment benefits means an adult who’s been laid off will receive $600 per week plus whatever his state’s unemployment benefits may be. Some lower-earning workers are actually taking in more by staying home right now than they would be on the job, which is good for social distancing efforts but not so good long-term for the national debt.

Second, what he says about mortgage holders being shafted is, ah, unfortunately true. At least in some cases.

When Morgan Davis, a furloughed clothing designer, called Wells Fargo to ask for help with her FHA loan about two weeks ago, she was offered to suspend three payments without penalty – three months of forbearance.

“But at the end of those three months, all my mortgage payments would be due at once,” Davis said. “I told [the bank representative] that didn’t sound very helpful. I explained I had only called to see if there was a way for me to hold onto more of my cash while I wasn’t getting paid…

“I contacted Bank of America BAC for forbearance and they granted me a 3-month program; at its completion July 1, I will have to pay them $12,000 [or the] equivalent of [four] mortgage payments,” a person wrote on the social media platform. “If I can’t pay it now, where am I going to get 4 months’ worth. I’m glad [you are] looking out for us.”

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A 90-day reprieve in which all owed money is due at the end of the 90 days doesn’t help someone who’s staring at months of unemployment. Fortunately, per Forbes, there may be alternatives to forbearance available under a particular mortgage. Payments could be deferred, which would add them to the back end of the loan; the term of the mortgage could be extended from 30 years to 40 years, to reduce current payments; or a small second mortgage could be taken out in the amount of the missed payments, which would payable after the first mortgage is paid off. But that’s Dibitetto’s point. Those options should have been added to all mortgages by statute, via the CARES Act, instead of a not very helpful 90-day forbearance.

Fair warning before you hit “play”: He curses here like Joe Pesci during an especially salty Scorsese movie monologue. F-bombs aplenty, although that’s part of the fun.

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