FORECLOSURES: NO END IN SIGHT A continuing steep drop in home prices combined with rising unemployment is powering a new wave of foreclosures. Unfortunately there's little evidence so far that the Obama administration's anti-foreclosure plan will be able to stop it. The plan offers up to $75 billion in incentives to lenders to reduce loan payments for troubled borrowers. Since it went into effect in March, some 100,000 homeowners have been offered a modification, according to the Treasury Department, though a tally is not yet available on how many offers have been accepted. That's a slow start given the administration's goal of preventing up to 4 million foreclosures. It is even more worrisome when one considers the size of the problem and the speed at which it is spreading. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported last week that in the first three months of the year, about 5.4 million mortgages were delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure. Not all of those families will lose their homes. Some will find the money to catch up on their payments. Others will qualify for loan modifications that allow them to hang on. But as borrowers become more hard pressed, lenders -- whose participation in the Obama plan is largely voluntary -- may not be able or willing to keep up with the spiraling demand for relief. One of the biggest problems is that the plan focuses almost entirely on lowering monthly payments. But overly-onerous payments are only part of the problem. For 15.4 million 'underwater' borrowers -- those who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth -- a lack of home equity puts them at risk of default, even if their monthly payment has been reduced. They have no cushion to fall back on in the event of a setback, like job loss or illness. This page has long argued that a robust anti-foreclosure plan should directly address the plight of underwater homeowners by reducing the loan's principal balance. That would restore some equity to the borrower -- and give them a further incentive to hold on to their homes -- in addition to lowering the monthly payment. The mortgage industry has resisted this approach and the Obama plan does not emphasize it. With joblessness rising, lower monthly payments could quickly become unaffordable for many Americans. In a recent report, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston argued that unemployment is driving foreclosures and to make a difference, anti-foreclosure policy should focus on helping unemployed homeowners. The report suggests a temporary program of loans or grants to help them pay their mortgages while they look for another job. The government will also have to make far more aggressive efforts to create jobs. The federal stimulus plan will preserve and generate a few million jobs, but that will barely make a dent -- in the overall economic crisis or the foreclosure disaster. Since the recession began in December 2007, nearly six million jobs have been lost, and millions more are bound to go missing before this downturn is over. President Barack Obama needs to put more effort and political capital into promoting the middle class agenda he outlined during the campaign, including a push for new jobs in new industries, expanded union membership, and a fairer distribution of profits among shareholders, executives and employees. There will be no recovery until there is a halt in the relentless rise in foreclosures. Foreclosures threaten millions of families with financial ruin. By driving prices down they sap the wealth of all homeowners. They exacerbate bank losses, putting pressure on the still fragile financial system. Lower monthly payments are a balm, but they are no substitute for home equity. And until more Americans can find a good job and a steady paycheck the number of foreclosures will continue to rise. MURDER IN KANSAS The murder of Dr. George Tiller, who was shot to death as he stood in the foyer of his church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday morning, was a reprehensible act of domestic terrorism directed toward the dwindling cadre of physicians who risk their safety to perform legal medical procedures. Tiller's death, the fourth killing of an American abortion provider since 1993, was the first since 1998 when a sniper gunned down Dr. Barnett Slepian in his home in the Buffalo area. For Tiller, and physicians like him, the threatening protests and incidents of violence and harassment have never really stopped. For his principled devotion to women's health and constitutionally protected rights, Tiller was the target of protests at his clinic, his house and his church. In 1986, his clinic was bombed, and, in 1993, an abortion opponent shot him in both arms. He was forced to fend off trumped up legal challenges aimed at shutting down his operations. Last month, vandals attacked his clinic. Nevertheless, he somehow persevered in a state that is one of the battlegrounds in the fight to restrict abortion. Responding to Tiller's slaying, President Barack Obama expressed shock and outrage and said that profound differences over issues like abortion 'cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.' Obama recently called for Americans to find common ground on reducing the need for abortions. In that spirit, abortion opponents should refrain from the 'baby killer' rhetoric that inflames an already heated debate. Attorney General Eric Holder says the U.S. Marshal Service will begin protecting certain abortion clinics and doctors. Holder should consider taking the additional step of revitalizing the National Task Force on Violence against Health Care Providers that former Attorney General Janet Reno established during the Clinton years. There must be a sustained focus by federal and state officials to prevent further acts of violence and intimidation. If it turns out that additional laws are needed, Congress should take action. Over time, the combination of anti-choice restrictions and ongoing harassment by protest groups even short of violence have served to make abortions harder and harder to obtain. That trend must be stopped. A CLEARER CLEAN WATER ACT The Obama administration has rightly declared its support for congressional efforts to restore the broad reach of the Clean Water Act. The law, passed in 1972, was intended to protect all of the waters of the United States, large and small. That mission has since been muddied by two Supreme Court decisions that narrowed the law's scope, weakened its safeguards against pollution and confused federal regulators. The administration has written to Senate and House committees urging them to act on bills that would restore federal jurisdiction over all wetlands and streams. All of the environmental big guns signed: Nancy Sutley, the chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Ken Salazar, the interior secretary; Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary; and Terrence Salt, the acting chief of Army Corps of Engineers. Their intervention is timely. Powerful commercial interests, including developers and big farming groups, have been pressuring Congress to keep things the way they are. For nearly three decades, the Clean Water Act was broadly interpreted by the courts and federal regulators as shielding all the waters of the United States -- seasonal streams and remote wetlands as well as lakes and large navigable rivers. The basic idea was that even the smallest waters have some connection to larger watersheds, and that they, too, need to be protected from pollution and development. Unfortunately, the actual language of the act was less clear than its intent. For instance, the word 'navigable' pops up from time to time, suggesting that the law only applied to waters capable of handling boat traffic. Pouncing on these ambiguities, the Supreme Court issued rulings in 2001 and 2006 that said, in effect, that only navigable, permanent water bodies merited federal protection. About 20 million acres of wetlands and more than half the country's small streams were suddenly stripped of protections, and federal investigations into suspected violations were dropped or delayed. The bills in Congress would, among other fixes, replace the troublesome word 'navigable' wherever it appears in the law with the far more inclusive 'waters of the United States.' Once Congress provides legal clarity, the administration's letter says, vigorous enforcement will follow. The letter also warns, rightly, that 'all of the environmental and economic benefits that these aquatic ecosystems provide are at risk if some elements are protected and others are not.' In other words, the biggest beneficiary of a tighter, clearer law will be the environment -- and the economy -- as a whole. COMMUNITIES, INNOVATION AND WASHINGTON Across the country, nonprofit groups are pioneering approaches to fixing problems in education, health care and alleviating poverty. A promising White House initiative seeks to expand upon these efforts by helping worthy projects grow and by encouraging other communities to try successful strategies. Central to the initiative is the creation of a Social Innovation Fund housed at the Corporation for National and Community Service. Congress has authorized the fund, and President Barack Obama's 2010 budget allots $50 million for it to start. The plan recognizes a hard reality of the nonprofit world: It is a lot easier to secure foundation grants and other short-term financing to develop a model program than it is to come up with the capital to expand successful programs and their potential for systemic change. The fund is supposed to address that problem by identifying successful high-impact programs prime for further development and expansion and then using government dollars as a catalyst to raise sustainable financing from foundations, businesses and individual donors. Melody Barnes, the director of the president's Domestic Policy Council, says that the innovation fund is part of a larger push by the administration to tap the expertise of nonprofits working effectively on social problems, to channel new help their way and to use lessons from the field about what works to shape government policies. If grantees are chosen wisely, and strictly on their merits, this $50 million investment could jump-start the larger effort and reap benefits worth many times over. 