During last night’s GOP primary debate in Nevada, the candidates managed to completely avoid any meaningful discussion of the nation’s ongoing housing crisis, despite being in the state that has led the nation in foreclosures for 56 consecutive months. But outside of the debate setting, several candidates are making their lack of concern for homeowners’ woes well known.

In a meeting with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review Journal, Romney said his plan to help homeowners is “don’t try and stop the foreclosure process.” Former pizza magnate Herman Cain said he would “get government off the back of the banks” to prevent foreclosures. And evidently Newt Gingrich feels the same way, telling Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren last night that “you have to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill,” the landmark financial reform law signed last year, in order to see “a dramatic decline in foreclosures”:

You have to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill, because the way the Dodd-Frank bill works, it dramatically, regulates the banks, it sends a signal to the regulators to tell them not to make the loans, not to roll over the money, and in effect it encourages foreclosures and encourages the bank actually seizing the property. So until you repeal the Dodd-Frank bill, which I think the House Republicans ought to do this week, I mean this is a terrible bill which is killing housing, it is killing small banks, it is killing small businesses, and it ought to be repealed. The minute you do that, literally, the minute you do that, it’s going to be easier for people to work their way out, you’ll have a dramatic decline in foreclosures.

Watch it:

Susteren replied, “I guess you trust banks more than I do.” “What’s the incentive for the bank to help the person out?” she asked, shockingly placing her in agreement with ThinkProgress,. Gingrich doubled down, saying that if only banks were allowed to treat borrowers however they wanted, foreclosures would decline.

However, as Tanya Somanader wrote earlier, banks have shown little interest in helping borrowers who are in trouble. “Instead, banks unleashed ‘robo-signers,’ officials who sign foreclosure forms without reading them, and managed to set a foreclosure record last year despite their self-imposed foreclosure moratoriums,” she said.

Indeed, the banks have shown that, left to their own devices, they will sucker borrowers into subprime loans, securitize and sell those loans around the world, and then drag their feet when it comes to approving loan modifications for troubled borrowers. All removing Dodd-Frank would do is ensure that the same practices that led the country into its current mess are allowed to continue unabated, ensuring that another generation of would-be homeowners gets sucked into Wall Street’s morass.

As the housing crisis rages and the 99 Percent Movement gathers strength, the GOP’s pizza candidate Herman Cain came out this morning with a strong defense of America’s most beleaguered demographic: bankers. Asked how he would help an American facing foreclosure on CNN’s American Morning today, Cain declared, “I would get the government off the backs of the banks.” “Many of the banks can’t do some of the things they want to do to help folks” because of “regulations or the threat of regulations coming out of Washington,” he said.

Asked whether he thinks government has any role in ensuring that banks deal fairly with customers, Cain said “no” because “then you distort the free market system.” Insisting that banks really do “want to help people” but can’t because of Wall Street reform and (bizarrely) “Obamacare” regulations, he said the best way to address the foreclosure crisis is to “remove the barriers that are keeping [banks] from doing business the way they would want to”:

CAIN: I know people don’t like this, but no. Because then you distort the free market system. Here’s how you encourage banks: Remove the barriers that are keeping them from doing business the way that they would want to. Most banks would want to renegotiate with people on their mortgages, but I’m telling you there are restrictions that are more government driven that are keeping them — I’ve had bankers tell me this. They didn’t give me a list of all the things that, you know, could be done. They want to help people, they really do. But it is the threat of government regulations, it is the threat of the Dodd-Frank bill and rolling it out. Some of it is the threat of the whole Obamacare thing.

Watch it:

First of all, the health care law has absolutely no effect on banks. It’s a health care law.

More importantly, Cain is championing the same group whose bad mortgage loans helped spur the financial implosion of 2008, has left over 1 million Americans with foreclosed homes, and may push an additional 5.9 million Americans to that outcome over the next few years. Banks and their lobbyists have openly “delayed, diluted, and obstructed attempts to address the problem.” Instead, banks unleashed “robo-signers,” officials who sign foreclosure forms without reading them, and managed to set a foreclosure record last year despite their self-imposed foreclosure moratoriums.

What’s more, by calling for an end to the Dodd-Frank regulations to protect foreclosure victims, Cain is jeopardizing key consumer protections for those looking to own a home. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency — which Republicans are hell-bent on obstructing — is designed to stop predatory lending by helping prevent mortgage brokers from putting borrowers into higher interest loans, regardless of their long-term ability to pay. The Dodd-Frank bill also stops banks from selling off an entire loan to avoid the risk of mortgage default, another problem that contributed to the financial meltdown. The law requires lenders to retain 5 percent of every loan — a policy banks are desperately trying to repeal.

But Cain insists that such safeguards hurt the banks by preventing them from “getting as creative as they could get.” Seeing as the banks’ “creativity” led to the housing crisis in the first place, perhaps Cain should take them out of the driver’s seat.

Do you really want you or your colleagues to go to work sick?

Recently, a string of cities and states have passed new ordinances that would require paid sick days for employees at certain employers. Just last week, Philadelphia’s city council passed a second version of a paid sick leave bill after the mayor vetoed the earlier one. Earlier this year, Seattle approved paid sick days legislation, while Connecticut became the first state with a state-wide requirement.

Now, the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch has published an expose of how the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a corporate front group that farms out legislation to almost a third of state legislators nationwide — is drafting legislation on behalf of its wealthy conglomerate funders to repeal these ordinances.

PR Watch obtained documents from ALEC’s 2011 Annual Meeting showing that one of the group’s committees — the Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee of the Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force — focused its entire meeting on the issue of paid sick leave. Task force members, who are legislators, were given copies of a bill that enables state legislatures to override municipal paid sick days laws. The same bill was used in Wisconsin to override Milwaukee’s paid sick days requirement.

PR Watch notes that ALEC’s Labor and Business Regulation subcommittee is co-chaired by a company that owns many of the nation’s fast food companies, major opponents of paid sick leave:

Meeting attendees were given complete copies of Wisconsin’s 2011 Senate Bill 23 (now Wisconsin Act 16), as a model for state override. They were also handed a target list and map of state and local paid sick leave policies prepared by ALEC member, the National Restaurant Association. In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Restaurant Association lobbied for SB 23 to repeal the sick leave ordinance, as did the the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), the local branch of the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an ALEC member). Not surprisingly, ALEC’s Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee is co-chaired by YUM! Brands, Inc., which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Fast food companies have fought paid sick leave across the country.

It is not surprising that corporate-backed groups like ALEC are gearing up to fight paid sick leave ordinances, given how quickly they are spreading across the nation. The next major city to possible get mandated paid sick days is, Denver, where residents will go to the polls on Nov. 1 to decide the fate of their city’s ordinance. The U.S. is currently the world’s only industrialized nation that does not require paid sick leave for workers.

A disturbing new report reveals that child abuse in the United States has reached “epidemic” levels, with one child dying every five hours from abuse or neglect. A recent congressional report estimates that some 2,500 children were killed as a result of maltreatment in 2009, and America has the worst child abuse record in the industrialized world.

And Texas has one of the worst child abuse records in the country, BBC noted. In Texas last year, 10.2 of every 1,000 children suffered confirmed abuse or neglect, and children younger than age 6 were the most common abuse victims — 39 percent were between the ages of 1 and 3.

But as governor, Rick Perry (R-TX) has repeatedly slashed funding for child abuse prevention. To balance a whopping $27 billion budget deficit, Perry choose to make draconian cuts to social services instead of raising any taxes or dipping into the state’s Rainy Day fund. Under the budget put forward by Texas Republicans, the state will have to lay off 565 caseworkers who investigate child abuse. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services will see a loss of nearly $40 million.

Child abuse prevention advocates warned that the number of abused children would increase if Perry approved a 32 percent funding cut to several key prevention programs that have been proven to reduce abuse. They point out that increased abuse actually ends up costing Texas more in coming years. The direct and indirect costs of child maltreatment in Texas surpassed $6.3 billion in 2007.

Abused children are more likely to require above-average levels of cash assistance, subsidized health care, house assistance, and other forms of welfare when they grow up, a state council reports. More at-risk youth may go to jail and drop out of school, and more families break down if there is no intervention — yet self-proclaimed “pro-family” Republicans are willing to put more children at risk to avoid raising taxes on cigarettes.

And the “low tax, small government” state model Perry brags about is largely responsible for Texas’ shameful record. Michael Petit, the president of Every Child Matters, explains that child abuse is worse in states where the government is less involved in children’s lives. For instance, children in Texas “are four times more likely to be uninsured, four times more likely to be incarcerated, and nearly twice as likely to die from abuse and neglect” as children in Vermont.

When Perry took office in 2001, the child abuse rate was 7.2 per 1,000 children in Texas. In 2003, Texas Republicans led by Perry enacted state budget cuts that shredded Texas’ Child Protective Services system. Not coincidentally, child abuse rates rose between 2003 and 2007 in Texas, even as they decreased significantly nationwide.

Last night’s GOP primary debate took place in Nevada, which has led the nation in foreclosures for 56 consecutive months. It should have been the ideal venue for discussing the housing crisis and the fact that 1 million people are projected to lose their homes next year.

One questioner from the audience did, indeed, ask about foreclosures, and the slew of non-answers that came from the GOP candidates is a strong indicator regarding the lack of ideas that they have for keeping people in their homes. In fact, the discussion almost instantly devolved into a spitting match over whether or not various candidates supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the much reviled bank bailout of 2008, which has nothing to do with the current foreclosure crisis. Watch it:

First off, for all of its undeniable warts, TARP has earned a profit for taxpayers and succeeded in bolstering the economy. Of the limited options available at the time, it was the right course, and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that all the candidates want to repeal is aimed at preventing a repeat of that situation.

In the few moments they did spend on actual housing policy, former Sen. Rick Santorum said, “We need to let the market work and that’s what hasn’t happened so far.” Romney doubled down on his remark from earlier that there should be no attempt to help homeowners facing foreclosure. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) turned the question into an attack on President Obama, saying he hasn’t done enough to help “women who are at the end of their rope because they’re losing their homes,” but offering no solutions of her own.

It was an embarrassing display, all the more so because the administration’s foreclosure prevention plans have been incredibly underwhelming, seemingly giving the candidates a legitimate opening to criticize the president. Instead, in their zeal to appeal to the anti-TARP sentiments of their base, they ignored the very real crisis with which homeowners in Nevada (and all across the country) are continuing to struggle.