Dean on Santelli: Good TV, but Mortage Plan Needed

Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean said that while the complaints by CNBC’s Rick Santelli on air yesterday about the Obama administration’s mortgage plan might have made for great television, the government must still intervene with some sort of mortgage rescue plan.

“I thought the rant that you all played looked like it was in a trading room,” the former presidential candidate and Vermont governor said Friday morning during an appearance on CNBC. “Isn’t that the industry that caused all of this in the first place?”

Dean said that it is not in the U.S. economy’s best interest to to let every homeowner with a distressed mortgage go belly-up, contrary to complaints by some that the $9 billion mortgage relief program proposed by President Obama this week.

“You can rant and rave and carry on, it was great television. We’ve got to do something smart and sensible here,” Dean said, praising Obama’s plan as just that: smart and sensible.

Dean argued that while difficult decisions will be made when allotting relief to homeowners, the government must intervene in the housing market.

“I think the kind of time for pointing the finger of blame has gone by,” Dean said. “You can’t fix it by letting all these people suffer every consequence.”

Watch a video of Dean’s CNBC appearance here.