Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"This home-owning problem has become very controversial, and I think, actually, the answer to your question is, it is supposed to help both. Obviously, if you have a program that's going to go in and say to a homeowner, 'Look, we're going to get your mortgage payments down to a level you can afford. We're going to renegotiate with your lender,' that's obviously helping that person. Yes, maybe they did get in over their head, but it's helping that person. The broader impact, though, is that clearly this recession has had its roots in the housing market. And a big problem in the housing market is the foreclosures. Until we get that fixed, really, the broader economy, which affects all of us, won't get better. So I think you can look at this new program as helping both those individual homeowners as well as the broader economy. We'll obviously have to wait and see if it works."