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The following article is an original economic stimulus plan developed by a real estate agent in New Jersey that is currently in the hands of the House of Representatives and every Senator in Washington D.C.

AMERICA'S BEST BET FOR $75 BILLION

Here is how the United States of America can simultaneously:

1. Reduce Foreclosure Activity & Protect Property Owners

2. Infuse Cash Directly To Main Street

3. Create Jobs: Urban, Suburban & Rural

4. Resurrect Dead CDO's / Boost Mutual Funds & Stock Markets

5. Protect Tax Lien Investors Who Fund Municipal Budgets

6. Fund Municipal Coffers With Tax Stream & REO Ownership

7. Upgrade Municipal Bond Ratings Instantly

8. Increase Local Food Banks; Urban, Suburban & Rural

9. Save Substantial Judiciary Time, Money & Energy

PRESUMPTIVE STATISTICS

Assume that all open uncollected delinquent municipal taxes and utility charges which have not yet become liens, plus all open municipal liens of record held by any and all parties nationally, plus all negatively impacted foreclosed REO since January 1, 2005 combine for a gross total somewhere between $50 and $125 Billion.

Let's call it $75B for the sake of this presentation. It is a well educated enough guess for this draft exercise.

PREAMBLE

The intention here is NOT to end up with the federal government taking title to ANY private property either by condemnation or foreclosure and it shall NOT be permitted to take assignment of any municipal lien, with both eyes on the 5th Amendment and with the dangers of Kilo v. New London clearly in mind. The Federal Government purchases NO interest in any private property and may take NO assignment of any lien under this plan. This plan is strictly a transparent "time-out" and "reset" of the national tax lien industry for the sake of stopping foreclosures while simultaneously protecting investors by shoring up the absolute bedrock of the capitalist economy which emanates directly from real property values and the taxes thereon.

There is no more directly grassroots solution to the global economy than to address the underlying values of the real estate upon which all local taxation is based. This is an intravenous infusion of hot cash to the arteries of both Wall St. and Main St. simultaneously!

It's the most pure bang for a tax buck possible: a renewable stimulus!

THE IDEA

Funded with $75B of the federal bail out money the new Municipal Redemption Fund ("MuRF") would execute its policy & plan stated as follows:

1. Any property owner subject to any sort of recorded municipal lien, regardless of what party may hold the lien and regardless of the potential or actual foreclosure status of the lien, may apply to the tax collector to draw from MuRF to redeem the lien and pay the lien holder.

2. Any tax lien holder may apply to the tax collector to have any active lien redeemed by MuRF.

3. Final Judgments recorded as of or after January 1, 2005 may be vacated of record to revert title to active lien status; said active liens being subject to redemption under the program.

4. Any & all unpaid municipal taxes and water/sewer charges delinquent enough to be statutorily (state by state re: tax lien laws) certified as liens, and all municipally held tax liens, may be claimed by the tax collectors for payment from MuRF.

5. All claims are subject to a non-extendable drop-dead DEADLINE date with no amnesty nor any promise of secondary funding beyond initial $75B (except to whatever extent the program shall become self-sustaining from capital gains taxes generated by redemption profits to lien holders or any other taxation income available from the positive effects of MuRF).

6. MuRF shall not prioritize or discriminate among claims to be paid in any manner whatsoever but shall strictly and promptly pay each certified claim from tax collectors on a "first come first served" basis so long as initial funding shall survive and/or subsequent funding shall persist...and then it's over.

7. Without exception, all payments coming out of MuRF would flow directly through municipal tax collectors with never any other middleman or other agency interception, with every penny to be accounted for in direct connection to every tax receivable claimed by any party, like a normal redemption each time, lien by lien, thus leaving the claimants and tax collectors to police each other directly; always subject to audits by, or appeals to, MuRF inspectors at any time.

GOALS & EFFECTS

Goal: Reduce Foreclosure Activity & Protect Property Owners

Effects:

- Fewer active liens / fewer possible tax lien foreclosures.

- Mortgage foreclosures would also decrease in equivalent proportion to the extent that reimbursement to the lenders for back taxes might rehabilitate the homeowner's equity position.

- More people keep their homes.

- Preventing increased homelessness helps avoid associated strains on community budgets.

- Preserve enormous court time & costs.

- Rehabilitate equity positions for banks by upgrading that portion of their mortgage portfolio with an infusion of cash straight to the entire taxed portion of it.

- Rehabilitate credit for borrowers by upgrading their credit ratings as the result of diminishing their real estate tax liability.

- Strengthen values of all neighborhood properties by reducing vacancies.

- Protects banks and strengthens their lending power by reducing their liabilities.

Goal: Resurrect those portions of securitized collateralized debt obligation ("CDO") portfolios comprised of hollow imploded mutual funds holding failed ghost tax lien based CDOs

Effects:

- By redeeming hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax liens that have already been written off as uncollectible by the managers of funds holding those securitized assets, otherwise defunct mutual funds will instantly be able to pay back accrued dividends.

- Resurrection of the tax lien based CDO laden mutual funds will radically stimulate equity stock markets.

- Renewed credibility to the underwriting due diligence behind cleaned up tax lien portfolios and streamlined municipal tax lien product will stimulate new lending and new securitization activity based on more transparent collateral and derivatives under revised guidelines.

- All income taxes derived from dividend payments and other liquidation income resulting from the resuscitation of the underlying tax lien product in said mutual funds would be funneled back to MuRF to perpetuate the program beyond the initial funding.

Goal: Fund Municipal Coffers

Effects:

- One-time funding of delinquent taxes and redemption of municipally held liens instantly goes to municipal budget bottom line for immediate use by mayor & council without necessitating the next round of tax sales by tax collectors.

- Provides temporary relief for distressed, delinquent and/or liened property owners by clearing their municipal tax accounts.

- Low value REO falling to municipal ownership will provide towns with available real estate for not-for-profit community services such as 501(c)3 groups that often come with their own funding from private or other governmental agency sources with the goal of rehabilitating such real estate for community minded projects. Since these properties are publicly acquired, offered first to the public, towns can always lease or sell their REO for profit too.

- Importantly, since only 28 states plus the District of Columbia presently sell tax liens, those states which do not sell them would see their municipal tax receivables instantly paid - for one time only - thus clearing their way for state legislation to provide for it going forward to attract private tax lien investment in the future by expanding the tax lien market for institutional investors who would happily pick up new tax lien product as it becomes available in the future. At the same time this would stop all the existing tax foreclosures in those states at the outset of the program.

Goal: Upgrade Municipal Bond Ratings Instantly

Effects:

- By pledging some relatively small portion of MuRF to guarantee municipal bonds those cities and municipalities would instantly see their ratings improve from C or B to A or AA or AAA. Such rating upgrades would reflectively lower the interest rates on those bonds due to their increased safety for investors; saving those municipalities that interest expense immediately.

- Despite the lower yields to investors, the safety factor would induce more purchases of municipal bonds, thus bringing substantial private investment dollars to the municipalities while simultaneously saving otherwise needed MuRF money as well as preserving additional TARP funds for use elsewhere.

- This additional private funding to municipalities would greatly enhance job creation and infrastructure rehabilitation in those communities utilizing no additional public funding.

Goal: Protect Tax Lien Investors

Effects:

- By allowing for the redemption of any lien regardless of who requests the redemption the tax lien investors will in some cases have liens redeemed which they may wish they could foreclose instead for bigger "hits." However, upon such forced redemptions they will never receive less than the face yield of their certificates with all penalties and full interest. Furthermore, they can likewise also clean their portfolios out of all unwanted liens on low value land or environmental sites, etc. at par to mitigate lost "one-time" opportunities elsewhere.

- Tax lien investors would be thoroughly replenished with cash from redemption funds received, ready to put that money out again as new delinquencies go to sale in the future.

- This is not "Game Over"…no; this is time-out and reset with penalties. And the tax lien industry as whole would be better able to perform basic due diligence on these new more transparent CDO's after the chaff is cleared away and gradually reassessed down (or up, as the case may be) to true current market values as quickly as possible. Thus this entire exercise is also a nationally oriented municipal real estate assessment & taxation reality check.

- Liens and delinquencies not redeemed by request of property owners or lien holders or tax collectors remain normal and active in every regard with no change to the system and may be foreclosed accordingly.

- Tax lien investors will realize substantial income from the flood of redemptions and REO foreclosure re-sales thus yielding substantial taxes on those profits; taxes to be recycled into MuRF to perpetuate its activity.

Goal: Create Jobs & Utilize Municipal REO Assets

Effects:

- Administrative agency & legal activity directly connected to this idea and generated directly by it would employ people at MuRF headquarters.

- Increased urban, suburban and rural farm activity and related connected food bank activity; increased inner-city 501(c)3 activity.

- Utilize vacant buildings; enrich municipalities with REO to effectively warehouse during the economic downturn by providing them for reconstruction and use by 501(c)3 organizations that qualify for funding from other programs for housing and/or other operations but need real estate in which to operate or dwell, such as substance abuse half way houses, Alzheimer facilities, inner-city day care and various faith based programs pursuant to parameters as 501(c)3. When the market turns around, then municipalities will have more valuable REO to continue to utilize for civic projects; or to liquidate as marketable improved assets profitable in either case for the town.

- Utilize vacant land; vacant inner-city building lots returned to cities as municipal REO can be warehoused as neighborhood community gardens growing produce for deposit into municipal food banks for consumption by the neighborhood growers with excess produce distributed to neighborhood shelters & soup kitchens. In more land rich areas, create rural jobs by fostering renewed farming on vacant lands available via municipal foreclosure and/or land lease in lieu of tax payments (town leases land for tax abatement and sublets to sharecropper whose crop is guaranteed to be bought by the food bank system). And again - when the market turns then municipalities will have more valuable REO to continue to utilize for civic projects, or to liquidate as an asset in either case for the town.

In closing, an additional thought already floated in news editorials is that Americans should also be permitted to invest the trillions they have in their retirement funds to purchase distressed and foreclosed real estate to further bring private money back into play and rehabilitate whole neighborhoods on a grassroots level. The LTV's involved would further secure banks and new private lenders too.

If that were permitted, it would further enhance all the effects of MuRF.

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FORWARD THIS LINK TO YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS!!!

http://www.ihavenet.com/politics/Economic-Stimulus-Bailout-Municipal-Redemption-Fund-Murf.html

America's Best Bet: Municipal Redemption Fund (MuRF)

Stopping Foreclosures & Protecting Investors

An original economic stimulus plan developed by a real estate agent in New Jersey that is currently in the hands of the House of Reps. and every Senator in Washington D.C.

The following link will assist you by identifying your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives and providing contact information.

Write Your Representative

The following link will assist you by identifying your Senator in the U.S. Senate and providing contact information.

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