Bush administration examines housing plans

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- The Bush administration has been discussing plans to help homeowners facing foreclosure for some time, the Council of Economic Advisers chairman said.

"(We) haven't just started thinking about households facing foreclosures," Ed Lazear said during a briefing Thursday. "We started thinking about this over a year ago last summer when we rolled out FHA Secure, and then there was Hope Now and Hope For Homeowners and so forth."

Both Lazear and White House press secretary Dana Perino said different ideas were being discussed and analyzed.

Perino said the administration was "willing to listen and think about other ideas and other policy options to help more homeowners."

If the analysis uncovers a plan that "strikes the right notes and could meet all of (these) standards -- that we want to protect taxpayers, make sure that it's also fair and that it would actually have an impact -- then we would move forward and we would announce it," Perino said. "But we're not ready to do that."