Are you an idiot to keep paying your mortgage?

For the first 200 or so years it existed, the United States was a place where individual responsibility was a valued concept - at least that is how it was taught to me. Not anymore. The United States is now a place that encourages infantile behavior and abandonment of commitment. As evidenced by Kathleen Pender’s editorial which asks the question, what’s my motive to keep paying?

Last week, the government announced a program that will substantially lower payments for many homeowners who have little or no equity, but only if they are at least 90 days delinquent.

Critics say the plan, which applies to loans owned or guaranteed by government wards Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac among others, could encourage people to suspend payments.

But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?

Elected officials have been chipping away at that by blaming the foreclosure crisis largely on predatory lenders. In a campaign fact sheet, President-elect Barack Obama says he “recognizes that the real victims in the subprime mortgage crisis are not the lenders, but the millions of borrowers who followed the rules and whose only crime was taking out mortgages that lenders told them they could afford.”

By all means, take advantage at the expense of the few remaining responsible people around you!

To qualify, you must be at least 90 days delinquent and live in the home as your primary residence. You must owe at least 90 percent of the home’s value. It’s fine if you owe more than it’s worth.

Your mortgage must be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or held by one of the participating loan companies.

If you meet these requirements and can document your income, your servicer will reduce your monthly mortgage payment - including property taxes, insurance and association dues - to 38 percent of your gross income.

The reduction can be accomplished in one or more ways:

– Reducing the interest rate, but not below 3 percent. (The new rate, if below market, goes back to a market rate after five years.)

– Extending the term of the loan up to 40 years.

– Reducing the principal on which monthly payments are calculated. Unpaid principal is added to the loan balance and due when the homeowner sells or refinances. The reduced interest payments never have to be repaid.

If you owe more than the home is worth, the plan will only reduce principal down to 100 percent of market value, according to an official for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which supervises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

If all three of these maneuvers can’t reduce your payments to 38 percent of income, you won’t get a fast-track modification but could still request a customized deal, says the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The streamlined process looks only at income, not assets. If you refinanced your home to buy a Mercedes or own another home, you won’t be expected to sell them to pay your mortgage.

Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, predicts that many homeowners who have little or no equity will stop paying their mortgage and then reduce their income to get the biggest payment cut possible. They could stop working overtime or, if two spouses work, one could quit. After the modification, they could try to boost their income again.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Schiff says. “People are going to feel like complete morons if they don’t participate. The people getting punished are the ones who never made an irresponsible decision to buy a house they couldn’t afford.”

I wonder where this road will take us. I don’t want people out in the street but I don’t want to reward irresponsible behavior either. This problem has been in the making for as long as I’ve been alive. The bastard child of the entitlement mentality is rearing its ugly head and it is hungry.