Foreclosure is the new bankruptcy

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Think the 2008 U.S. election is going to be about national security? Chew on this.

Nearly 1.3 million properties in the United States went into foreclosure last year, according to statistics just released by RealtyTrac. That’s a 79 percent increase over 2006. One in every 100 U.S. households is some stage of foreclosure. The top states for filings were Nevada, Florida, and Michigan, each of which saw 2 percent or more of its households suffer foreclosure in 2007. California alone, the big prize on “Super Tuesday,” had nearly half a million such filings in 2007, and roughly half of those actually went into foreclosure.

I don’t care how much candidates have already stumped on this topic; we need to be hearing more from the campaign trail about what they plan to do about this crisis. So, Hillary, Barack, Mitt, and John: What’s the plan?