Several financial gurus have praised President Bush's effort to stem the bleeding market from the deep cuts incurred by subprime mortgage lenders and dirty-dealing real estate investors.

I'll try to make this simple. A lot of speculators took out loans for homes with the expectation of making a quick profit on the equity when they resold the properties in a booming real estate market. When the market fell, the equity vanished and the speculators defaulted on their mortagages.

Bush wants these guys to pay their debts while he cuts off their avenues to refinancing by denying them insurance through the Federal Housing Authority. He also aims to help average homeowners by granting them the insurance if they are credit worthy.

Here is where the policy falls flat, according to some mortgage lenders:

"Bush says that FHA is going to help insure people who are credit worthy and you can't be credit worthy if you are in bankruptcy or close to it and certainly not if you are in foreclosure," said Mike Watson, a local mortgage lender. "I have at least four cases on my desk that can't qualify for FHA insurance right now."

What are the eligibility requirements? From the HUD Web site:

* The mortgage loan is funded by a mortgage company, bank or savings and loan association, and the mortgage is insured by HUD.
* It must be the borrower's primary residence.
* The borrower must meet standard FHA credit qualifications.
* The borrower is eligible for approximately 97% financing. The borrower is able to finance the upfront mortgage insurance premium into the mortgage. The borrower will also be responsible for paying an annual premium.
* Eligible properties are one-to-four unit structures.

Mr. Watson said the credit industry is slowly raising the bar for worthiness. "What [Bush] has said has no effect on people with credit scores between 400 and 500 and doesn't help anybody else because you have to have a 600 score or better to get a Chapter 13 bankruptcy or buyout loan."

" A good credit score is about 720 right now. When just a few months ago, it was 640 and months before that 600, and that is what happened when the market got shook up," Mr. Watson said.

For Mr. Bush's plan to work, he said, the Federal Reserve will have to lower the interest rate or the credit industry will have to lower the credit worthy score, which is unlikely.

In addition, the impact of the "crisis" has to be weighed against the fact that subprime lending accounts for only 4 percent of the total mortgage lending market, he said.

We'll find out what the Fed decides on Sept. 18.

-- Brian DeBose, national political reporter, The Washington Times