Bob Shiller supports a tax credit to fix a housing mess

He writes:

We used to talk a lot about helping homeowners in trouble.
Instead, the bankers were bailed out - and now we hardly talk at all about aiding ordinary Americans. 

Yet the problems facing homeowners today are even bigger than they were in the dark days of the financial crisis. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index, home prices have fallen 13.2 per cent since Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008. Over the same period, of course, unemployment has climbed.
In other words, more homeowners are underwater on their mortgages - and more Americans are out of work. And home prices are still falling. 

So we need to overcome the sense that real help is impossible - and to think about approaches that might be politically feasible. Despite concern over our national debt and a general distaste for spending taxpayer dollars on people who may have been less responsible, there are some potential solutions. 

The piece continues....