62692 external_news 1289486343 1475893452 Federal funding for a California plan that helps borrowers facing foreclosure has snowballed to $2 billion, enough to potentially help more than 100,000 homeowners. But the program lacks formal agreements with the nation's largest banks and investors, and their cooperation is needed to make the proposed effort broadly successful... "If you can't do the principal write-down, you are limited in what you can do," said Dan Immergluck, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who studied the different state plans developed with the federal bailout money. "It is one thing for them to agree not to write down principal when they are being asked to foot the whole bill," he said, "but when the states are agreeing to match this 50-50, it seems rather ridiculous of the servicers and the investors not to agree to this."

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