For the second time in as many weeks, the New York Times tries to make sense of the nation's housing crisis and editorializes in favor of expanded bankruptcy protection and against "voluntary" efforts to forestall further foreclosures and foster re-financings, but it flies in the face of the facts: Most important, Congress must not continue with efforts that have not worked to date, namely, appeals to the mortgage industry to act voluntarily to help distressed borrowers. Instead, lawmakers should allow bankrupt homeowners to have their mortgages modified under court protection. This formulation does a disservice to readers and is likely to be ignored by policymakers seeking sensible solutions to the housing crisis for two reasons:

• False Dichotomy: foreclosure prevention via re-financings does not preclude prevention via bankruptcy, or vice-versa. To suggest otherwise irrationally removes a vital policy tool from among the viable solutions available to policymakers.
• Laissez-Faire vs. Incentivized 'Voluntary" Programs: President Bush's "HOPE" program is aptly named -- borrowers and lenders can only hope their counterparts are willing to re-negotiate; Barney Frank's plan rewards borrowers and lenders who voluntarily re-negotiate.

As we commented, last week's editorial put forth the very same false dichotomy, so the Times reader is now left to puzzle this out: why is the paper suggesting that without a bankruptcy provision, any housing bill is really a mortgage industry bailout? The merits aside, the legislative reality is that the bankruptcy provision faces long odds: it was defeated 36-58 by the Senate on April 3 -- 11 Democrats voting against. Bush has promised to veto the provision. Does the Times mean to suggest that there are no viable legislative solutions to the housing crisis?