easier. >> this will help a lot more homeowner refinance at lower rates which mean consumers save money. those families save money. and it gets those families spending it and it makes it easier for them to make their mortgage payments so they don't lose their home and bring down home values in the neighborhood. i'm going to keep on doing everything in my power to help to stabilize the housing market, grow the economy, accelerate job growth, and restore some of the security that middle class families have felt slipping away for more than a decade. >> tonight, conservatives already are calling it another misguided government bailout. some democrats call tight little too late. whatever you think, the president is fighting his own history here. did you get a sense of a bit of deja vu listening to the president? this is president obama a month after taking office 2009 in hard hit, mesa, arizona. >> the plan i'm announcing focuses on rescuing families who played by the rules and acted responsibly. by refinancing loons for millions of families in traditional mortgages who are underwater or close to it. >> back then, 20% of the nation's residential mortgages were underwater. now, 27% of mortgages are underwater. a state by state look shows the biggest problems are in some big 2012 battlegrounds. 6 in 10 mortgages in nevada underwater. shy of half under water in arizona. obama administration officials won't tell us just how many home owner are likely to benefit from this new program and the truth is this president's history is again at play there. here necessary 2009. >> through this plan we will help between 7 and 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages so they can afford, avoid foreclosure. and we're not just helping homeowner at risk of falling over the edge. we're preventing their neighbors from being pulled over that edge, too. >> you heard the president. 7 million to 9 million. the truth? two and a half years later, the "washington post" reports just 1.7 million families have been helped by the home affordable refinance program. that mesa announcement in 2009 came one today after president obama signed the nearly $800 billion stimulus plan. and he said the combination of that stimulus spending and the housing plan would put the economy on a path to recovery. >> it will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wrecking even greater havoc on the economy. and by bringing down the foreclosure rate, it will help to shore up housing prices for everybody. >> sadly, the number don't lie. home values nationally declined 4.5% in the last year. the unemployment rate, 8.2% when the president signed the stimulus and gave that speech of it's 9.1% now. and analysts are predicting a record 1.5 million foreclosures in 2012. will this latest white house plan finally help? the secretary of housing and urban development is with us tonight mr. secretary, if you go through that history, it pretty sober. why should anyone think this latest plan will prove to be the difference? >> we've taken the housing market that was literally falling off a cliff. and we've stabilized it. it is also true that we haven't done enough. and we haven't gone far enough. and we're going to keep pushing, keep expanding these efforts to make sure that we do get to a point where the housing market isn't just stabilized but it is recovering and recovering in a way that homeowners again have a light at the end of the tunnel and can see themselves getting back above water. so we're continuing to push. today's announcement is part of a broader strategy to keep making a difference in the housing market. those are the facts. >> how many people, how many homeowners do you think will be held by this new revision of the rules? >> well, we're going to finalize the rules over the next couple weeks with the federal regulator that is primarily responsible here. we're going to have to see how the private sector responds. ultimately, we need the private sector to step up. whether on the streamlining that we've done with second leans or mortgage insurance. if you look at the broad population of who is eligible. about 4 million families that have fannie mae or freddie mac ploens are underwater and could benefit by a refinancing. the average benefit is over $2,500 a year. a substantial benefit for those families. we'll to have see how many of them actually take this up. the other thing that is important here is the kinds of changes that we're making. common sense changes to stream 39 mortgage process. to bring down costs for refinancing could also benefit many other homeowners as well. there are 6 to 7 million borrowers who are above water. that have equity in their homes and could benefit from a substantial reduction in their interest rate. but haven't refinanced. and so we hope that removing some of these barrier could also help them to refinance as well. that would provide another boost to the economy. >> is it fair to say you're a bit cautious about putting a number on this because the predictions in the past, the president said 7 to 9 million. and under the stimulus plan they said unemployment wouldn't go above 8.1. is part of this caution about history? >> part of the issue is we've gone, we've sat down with the private sector. we've figured out how to make these changes to streamline a process that has been too difficult to unwind to this date. we're going to have to see how those work. what there's no question about is that this is the right thing to do. it is something that will put more money in the family in the pockets of american families. it is something that will help the housing market more broadly. and the economy more broadly. because it is going to be better in terms of consumer spending. the other thing i would say, it is good for the taxpayer in the sense that these will be safer loans. the fannie and freddie loans will default less because payments will be lower. in that sense it is a win/win for the private sector. for the american home opener. but also for the taxpayer as well. >> appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you very much. >> continuing the conversation with a polythigs thing crisis all too well. dennis cardoza. three cities in his central valley district. modesto, stockton, and the third, fourth and sixth highest in the country. you heard him say this is a win/win. this is finally at least the beginning of the help to get people back. is this enough? >> well, i'm glad the secretary is refocused on this. frankly, i told him in 2009 that these programs weren't going to be enough themselves wouldn't be effective for my district. and they haven't been fiktive for most of the country. where these problems exist. >> what's wrong them? you heard the president in 2009 themselves sold this at the time. they were very ambitious, very optimistic and frankly they haven't worked out to match the numbers. is it their fault? >> good intentions but they haven't put enough pressure on the banks. the programs were too cumbersome to begin. with in my area, many of the home are 70% underwater. when they limited it to 105 and then to 125% of loan to value, they immediately cut off the worst hit areas. and those markets just continue to decline. >> there's an argument about thissism want to you listen to the former massachusetts governor out in las vegas. he gave an interview. you stay administration hasn't done enough and you talk about those who are way underwater. 150%, 170%. what you view as the government's responsibility to help them. listen to governor romney. a very different perspective. >> don't try to stop the foreclosure process. let it run its course and hit the bottom. allow investors to buy homes. put renters in and let it turn around and come back up. the obama administration has slow walked the foreclosure process. >> his perspective is that the government willer in get it right. you say it's too cumbersome. too many rules. his perspective is you know what? the government willer in get this right. get out of the way. painful maybe but let the market run its course. >> look at his state of michigan that he is so proud of being from. and you look at detroit. and because of the spiraling values, the homes they 40 now cost less than the car they make. what cars they still make. it is a very intractable problem. when the appraisals and the values start declining, they tend to be a vortex that keep going until it hits bottom. we can't afford as a country to let this problem continue until we all hit bottom. >> you're not running for re-election. >> i'm not. >> how much does this factor in? >> it's a big frustration. that i was not able to get more people focused on this sooner. the neglect to this crisis until now of the administration. they talked a good game. they put in some programs that i were well intentioned but they simply haven't worked. >> neglect is a pretty strong word. this is a president who is about to go around the country saying i want four more years. i've tried my best to have a democrat saying he has neglected one of the biggest, if not the country's biggest economies. >> this is the administration's biggest failure. without excising this cancer from the economy, you are never going to cure the patient. and i support the president. i'll vote for the president next election. i hope he wins. >> he won't get done what he wants with the republican house. why did it happen in the two steer democrats controlled everything? >> we could not get them to focus on it. >> could not get the white house to focus on it. >> right. >> you tried. >> we tried. we did a lot of meetings. i brought mr. donavan to my district. he told me he had the answer. clearly he didn't. you showed tonight in your statistics. the statistics don't lie. when i told him that they didn't have the correct answer, they were pretty arrogant about it. he said you don't understand what you're talking about. a former realtor, a former businessman, i think i know what i was talking about. they didn't listen to the members of congress were telling them there was a better way. >> piers: this may sound a crass question. what will the political ramifications be for the president? i don't think you think he'll lose california. but your part of the state which is a little more dicey. >> the president has a chance to get it right. he hope he duxs america needs him to success succeed. it's a baby step. i think it's a positive step. an acknowledgement that the upon is significant. i'm glad he's going to las vegas to announce it. hopefully he'll talk to enough people there that he nldss the depth of despair that's going on in our country. my folks have been living through a depression. and 30% of my folks have lost their houses. it is significant. it is awful for the people in the families going through it. and it really needs to be addressed. >> appreciate your help tonight. >> thank you. ment? tunisia was the first arab country to overflow it's long ruling dictator and it is now the first country to have an election. ♪ oh, beautiful ♪ for spacious skies ♪ ♪ for amber waves of grain ♪ ♪ for purple mountain ♪ majesties ♪ ♪ oh, above the fruited plain ♪ well, now, wait a minute ♪ i'm talkin' about ♪ america ♪ sweet ♪ america ♪ god done shed his grace on thee ♪ [ male announcer ] for the first 100 years and for generations to come, thanks for making us a part of your life. ♪ yes, he did ♪ hey, with brotherhood or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business. it's good for the entire community. at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities. that's why we extended $7.8 billion to small businesses across the country so far this year. because the more we help them, the more we help make opportunity possible. sun life financialrating should be famous.d bad, we're working on it. so you're seriously proposing we change our name to sun life valley. do we still get to go skiing? sooner or later, you'll know our name. sun life financial. after five days. letting people view moammar gadhafi's rotting corpse, they are about to let them be buried. they tell reuters news agency, it will be a simple ceremony tomorrow attended by muslim clerics and will be held at a secret location. also torngt reuter reports his son saif al islam gadhafi has a forged passport and was trying to get out of the country. dan, let's start with the burial of moammar gadhafi. this has been quite controversial. his family and the tribe commanding the body back. it doesn't sound like this is going to happen. >> reporter: i think it is going to happen. we were there and they were clearly trying to wrap up the sort of public display of the body. we're hearing from one government source saying it is likely to happen tomorrow. another unnamed source saying possibly it will be moved by helicopter into the desert and buried out in the middle of nowhere, basically, so that it doesn't become a shrine, his grave. they have been stung pretty badly by the criticism of the handling over his capture. then his killing and now his burial. and i'm sure they want to draw a line under this and move on. >> when you talk about stung by the citizen civil. secretary of state clinton over the week saying we need a clear and thorough investigation of whether as the traditional government says he was caught in a cross fire while they were trying get to him out of there. whether he was executed. how specific has the traditional council been about such an investigation and the transparency of it? >> they said there is going to be a committee effectively set up, looking into it. it is just how indiana is that committee going to be and how thorough will it be? there has been no independent expert able to go in and examine the body. yes, there was a post mortem but we still haven't been will whether the gunshot wound to the head that we can see was at close range or was from the cross fire further away. i think the more suspicious case, the more difficult case for the ntc is the son. he was shown in a video captured clearly alive and an life threatening condition and then wound up with a bullet in his head work the bullets in his neck and five bullets in his back. no one has explained how that happened yet. >> serious questions for the transitional government as we approach a very important time as they try to prove their credibility. dan rivers in tripoli. and next door in tunisia, the first country to overthrow the dictator. set to announce the results of the first ever free elections for representatives. they will write a new democratic constitution. tonight a moderate islamist party predicts it will have the most votes. is that likely to prove true? a moderate islamist party getting the lead out of this first round of elections? >> reporter: it does look like it's headed toward a victory. and it was banned in this country a little more than nine months ago when the dictator was still in charge here. not only is this party predicting that it will win but so are some of the parties that ran against it. one secular party in particular. but it doesn't seem like they are going to have enough votes, enough seats to have an outright majority. it will likely have to form some kind of a coalition with at least one other secular political party to form consensus on writing a constitution on forming a new government. and that may comfort some people who are worried about an islamist party coming to power here who have expressed fear that it could restrict secular life styles or take away women's rights. all accusations the party itself continues to deny, john. >> and they are watching next door in egypt. they are watching in libya. they are watching around the region and around the world. describe for us how this worked out in terms of the safety and security and the emotions of this historic vote. >> reporter: well, the election monitors here, diplomats i've talked, to tunisians themselves are applauding what was, appeared by all appearances to be transparent, free, fair election. and a complicated one. you had more than 60 political parties competing on sun. thousands of independent candidates. and the ballots were enormous. i looked in one district. there were 95 choices that people could pick from. if you consider that you basically had single party rule here for close to a quarter century. and people didn't really feel like they had any freedom, or any choice on who to vote for. that's a pretty incredible change. to have organized this in such a short period. all the election monitors i've talk to have said this is an incredible accomplish many for tunisians and we have to remember, this arab spring, this arab awakening couldn't have been possible without the first tunisian example in january when the tunisians rose up and peacefully overthrew their dictatorial president and inspired many other arab countries to try to do the same. >> an inspiration then and programs now, an inspiration now. live for us in tunisia. let's get some perspective from the new york time columnist. nick, i want to start with where he we left off with ivan. it is remarkable to see this carries out so soon after the dictator was tossed. will this now be a litmus test for egypt, the transitional government in libya and maybe beyond? >> i think that it will, frankly. at the beginning of the year, tunisia set an example for all the world. and today it did the same thing by being the first to have free elections. and we're focussing on the apparent victory of the islamic party. at the end of the day, this wasn't just a victory for them. this was a victory for democratic party in tunisia and the entire arab world. >> the president of the united states had a conversation today. he is the military leader of egypt at the moment. the senior military leader. the president says both leaders agreed, they would have an open democracy and things would move quickly toward the elections scheduled quite soon in egypt. how confident are you? there's been a lot of tensions and activists have been quite skeptical. >> i'm not terribly confident of the process and a number of other countries and egypt is one of them. it the mill has been not a particularly helpful part of the process. in egypt. but tunisia will help. it will set an example once more. and i hope that americans don't just focus on the fact that it was an islamist party that won. i think there's a tendency for americans to have this nervousness about an islamic party winning. if he end of the day, their end is not something like iran. it looks more like turkey where you have a secular democracy run by a moderate islamic party. >> there's a lot of nuance to learn about these. how about libya? how important do you think it is for the transitional party to have a transparent investigation as to whether gadhafi, perhaps one of his sons was just coldly executed, and how might that slow stall if you will, any sort of next phase, next chapter in libya's transition? >> i'm skeptical that investigation will get very far. it is important for the international community. but i think among libyans themselves, there's probably, a, pretty broad acceptance that probably gadhafi was executed. and b, pretty big acceptance that's no problem at all. so from outside, we may see that as a lapse in the process and it is. but at the end of the day, i don't think that will be something that libyans themselves will focus on. and right now they're the ones in charge. >> we want to cross north africa there. we don't have to go very far to see tumult and change in the region including iraq, when the president asked by the end of the year all the troops will be out, there were some saying does iran win here? after nearly 4,500 american fatalities in iraq. billions of dollars spent. does iran somehow win? i want to you