In defense of FHA

I arrived in this country from Italy on Dec. 31, 1957 and in 1958, thanks to an FHA loan, I was able to purchase my first home in Duarte, Calf. The rules were simple: 10 percent down and qualify for the loan, noting that your wife's income did not count for the loan qualification and the monthly loan payment had to be less than a quarter of your monthly income for a 30year loan. A fraction of a point was added to the interest for an insurance against default so that we were not even a risk to government that warranted the loan.

The Regan Administration did not like the FHA because it was too socialist in nature and interfering with the free market, and started to dismantle the program by withholding the funds. Interesting enough to know that recently our legislation and the Bush administration, in the mix of the foreclosure chaos, decided to dust off the 1934 program and to "modernize it." They funded it again with $200 billion, hoping to mitigate the present mess of home foreclosures.

This FHA program has allowed, since 1934, millions of families to own their home. A real capitalistic program of such a low cost to the taxpayers, but so beneficial as history proved to be. Is it time to kick out some of the ideological idiosyncrazies? Francesco Bauducco Agoura Hills