At some point, Treasury needs to ask itself what value there is in a desktop power supply program under which not only participation, but also compliance with the rules, is voluntary…. Without meaningful servicer accountability, the program will continue to flounder. Treasury needs to recognize the failings of HAMP and be willing to risk offending servicers. And if getting tough means risking custom desktop servicer flight, so be it; the results could hardly be much worse.

Or the timing. A record 2.9 million homes fell into foreclosure in 2010, with banks seizing more than 1 million homes. As of December, roughly one out of every 500 housing units in the U.S. had received a foreclosure filing, according to research firm RealtyTrac. More than 3 million foreclosure notices are expected in 2011.

Treasury’s dismal record of fighting usb desktop foreclosures comes awfully close to complicity with the financial industry. To that end, agency chief Tim Geithner also has argued against even a temporary slowdown in foreclosures in wake of the “robo-signing” scandal.

Let us pause briefly to marvel at the I2C DC-DC Controller imbecility of this policy, at its Kafkaesque incoherence, its brutish indifference to people’s lives: The feds won’t punish banks for breaking the rules because, if they do, the banks might break the rules. I’ve read Zen koans that make more sense.

Disastrous HAMP

With such lax federal SMBus DC-DC Controller oversight, it’s no wonder HAMP has been a bust. When the program launched in March 2009, the government said it would help 3-4 million homeowners avoid foreclosure. Nearly three years later, fewer than 522,000 mortgages had been permanently modified under HAMP. The government claims it has taken steps to make financial firms improve their notoriously bad customer service in helping borrowers under HAMP, but to no avail — complaints about the GUI DC-DC Controller program are rising.

Neil Barofsky, the government official who oversees TARP (though which HAMP is funded), recently blasted Treasury for failing to crack down on servicers

Under Digital DC-DC Controller IC pressure from financial lobbyists, ProPublica suggests, Treasury also weakened the HAMP rules that stipulate what servicers must do to fix problems in administering the program. As a result, “servicers can define for themselves what violations” they choose to disclose to the agency.

But wait, there’s more. Why is Treasury reluctant to punish Wall Street giants with large DC-DC Controller IC servicing operations, such as Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), for failing to comply with HAMP? Because the agency is afraid that cracking down by, say, withholding modification payments would cause loan servicers to abandon the program.

“If servicers don’t get paid for future modification Auto-control activity, there is a risk that they will be less inclined to continue completing HAMP modifications or to follow HAMP guidelines to evaluate homeowners for all loss mitigation options before referring them to foreclosure,” said a Treasury spokeswoman.

Yet while Obama was politically deft, I’m less convinced that the few concrete wall mount power supply ideas he laid out will do much to boost the U.S. economy in the short term. It is no coincidence that Obama did not utter the words “unemployment” or “jobless” even once. Because in fact the White House has already pulled virtually all the economic levers it can to stir job creation before the 2012 election rolls around.

For instance, Obama’s custom wall mount pledge to use savings to lower corporate taxes without adding to the deficit sounds great, but appears unworkable. Here’s the hitch: However committed the government is to ensuring that tax reform is “revenue-neutral,” the business lobby can only unite its diverse constituency by insisting on a plan that cuts taxes. As former U.S. Treasury economist Martin Sullivan told me:

Although there is likely to be a lively usb wallmount switcher debate about tax reform and a lot of grandstanding need for competitiveness throughout 2011 and 2012, the chances for significant corporate reform are small — unless one side or the other is willing to make major concessions. It is unlikely either side will.

Where Obama did borrow from the Clinton CEC V desktop playbook is in his renewed call for bipartisanship. He could hardly do anything but, of course, as lawmakers fraternized across the aisle in honor of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. But given the current rancor in Washington — embodied by Rep. Paul Ryan’s peevish response to the speech — it might have been tempting to at least brush back Republican lawmakers for their slash-and-burn politics.

Instead, as The New Republic’s Ed Kilgore notes, Obama echoed Clinton’s EUP2 desktop theme of “progress over partisanship” during the latter’s second term, when the parties were equally at odds. Says Kilgore:

During that period, the Republicans being asked to transcend “partisanship” were trying to remove Clinton from office. And Clinton wasn’t really extending his hand in a gesture of wallmount power supply cooperation with the GOP but, by creating a contrast with their ideological fury, indicating that he himself embodied the bipartisan aspirations of the American people and the best ideas of both parties. It was quite effective.

Good point. Because however pie-in-the-sky Obama’s entreaties to the other side may strike the commentariat or political operatives, polls suggest the voting public still likes the idea.

Politically, in other words, it was a brilliant desktop power supply speech. Not by making a mad dash for the center, but rather by playing all sides against the reasonable middle, which just happens to be where “swing” voters and independents tend to cluster. Obama underscored the importance of the private sector in leading America back from the brink. Yet unlike Bill Clinton’s 1995 SOTU, when a crushing defeat by Republicans during the midterm elections led him to denigrate the very idea of custom desktop government, this president affirmed a central role for it.

To this end, Obama flanked Republicans on the usb desktop deficit front by announcing a partial freeze on domestic spending. But he also made a strong case for preserving popular entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. He drew applause by vowing to eliminate unnecessary government regulations on business, and further cheers for standing behind the necessity of financial and health reform. Policies everyone likes — investing in clean energy, education, infrastructure — were endorsed, but without chaining the administration to unrealistic goals in an age of fiscal uncertainty.

Meet President Barack Obama, chameleon. Struggling to decode his I2C DC-DC Controller State of the Union address, pundits are predictably reading their own political views into the speech.

Moderates heard Obama reprising the “Yes, we can” ethos of his 2008 SMBus DC-DC Controller campaign, as he invited Republicans to join him in a long-term project to rebuild, reeducate and renew the country. Conservatives rued a “missed opportunity” to introduce an aggressive program of federal spending cuts and his fuzzy rhetoric about “winning the future.” Progressives focused on what Obama left out — substantive discussion of unemployment, foreclosure or the other economic hardships afflicting many Americans. Writes Jamelle Bouie at the left-leaning American Prospect:

By completely omitting the country’s GUI DC-DC Controller employment crisis from his address, Obama is giving Democrats the space to look away from the wreckage, if they haven’t already driven past it.

Bachus, a critic of the Dodd-Frank wallmount power supply reform law, easily won reelection last month with a campaign fueled in part by big bank political action committees, according to Federal Election Commission data. PACs run by Bank of America (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS), UBS, Capital One (COF), Credit Suisse (CS), Wells Fargo (WFC), the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and CME Group (CME) were among the wall mount power supply financial services groups that each contributed the legal maximum of $10,000 to Bachus’ campaign over the past two years. Another $10,000 donor: a PAC funded by the National Automotive Dealers Association, which successfully won exemption from regulation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Biggert also collected custom wall mount contributions from PACs run by Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), HSBC (HBC), Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, CME Group, and the American Bankers Association.

You get what you pay for.

Republicans have made no secret of their usb desktop plans to weaken Dodd-Frank. Bachus, who in July likened the law to a “government takeover of the economy,” has in addition to targeting the CFPB pledged to repeal the part of Dodd-Frank that gives CEC V desktop regulators authority to close large financial firms. He also has signaled his intent to loosen the “Volcker rule,” which limits banks’ use of proprietary trading and their investment in private equity and hedge funds; roll back new restrictions on derivatives; and make it harder for investors to hold credit rating agencies liable. Meanwhile, other GOP lawmakers have made thinly veiled threats about reducing funding for financial regulatory agencies.

The Center for Public Integrity, a EUP2 desktop investigative journalism outlet in Washington, notes that Bachus and Biggert have recently drawn strong financial support from Wall Street. Big banks historically have directed their campaign contributions to both parties, with Democrats enjoying a funding edge earlier in the latest election cycle. But financial firms and industry trade groups shifted their money toward Republican candidates as Dodd-Frank steamed toward passage in July

While they have little hope of repealing the new GUI DC-DC Controller consumer agency — which has broad powers to write rules for mortgages, credit cards and other financial products — Republicans can work to influence regulators to blunt the agency’s power.

Sending critical desktop power supply letters and ordering up investigations are two time-honored ways lawmakers exert influence. In this case, Republicans have two main targets: the Treasury Department, which is running the new agency until it assumes its full powers on July 21, and Elizabeth Warren, who was tapped as a special adviser by President Barack Obama to lead the setup of the bureau.

In their letter, Bachus and Biggert asked the IGs to specify Warren’s custom desktop authority in setting up the CFPB, which officially launches in July. The Harvard law professor, who is credited with conceiving the bureau, is overseeing the process as a special adviser to Obama.