Teeth, please

Slow-to-no mortgage fixes

Banks and other mortgage lenders have been slow so far to modify struggling homeowners' loans, but they now face a deadline. Congress and the White House should hold them strictly to it.

Obama administration officials recently gave the lenders until November to record 500,000 mortgage loan modifications under a voluntary federal program designed to avoid foreclosures.

So far, the results of the federal program, called Making Home Affordable, are not encouraging. A report issued Tuesday by the Treasury Department showed that only 9 percent of the 2.7 million delinquent borrowers eligible for loan modifications have received help. Those homeowners have missed at least two mortgage payments.

Meanwhile, the number of foreclosures continues to rise. More...