Facts
1. The House and the Senate control the purse strings of government. Constitutionally, budgets do not come from the White House.
2. The Democrats took over the House and the Senate on January 3rd, 2007, two years before Bush left the White House.
3. Since January 3rd, 2007, the Democrats have proposed no budget as required by law.
The Housing Crisis
On January 3rd, 2007, Barney Frank, took over the House Financial Services Committee.
On January 3rd, 2007, Christopher Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee. For years the Democrats had striven to fully implement the Community Re-Investment Act, and with Frank/Dodd in control its provisions became reality.
Starting in 2001, Bush and others asked Congress to stop Fannie & Freddie 17 TIMES!
• On Sept 11, 2003, the Bush Administration submitted plans to Congress for a "New Regulatory Agency," run by the Treasury, to monitor Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Democrats blocked this effort led by Frank, Dodd, Obama, Clinton, Shumer, the Progressive (and Black) caucus.
• In 2004, the Bush Administration, investigated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and found massive fraud, yet Congress failed to penalize or prosecute anyone.
• And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? Why, it was then Senator BARACK OBAMA.
• And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? Why it was BARACK OBAMA and the Democrat Congress.
• Also, Franklin Raines, Head of Freddie Mac, earned a $100 million bonus in 1999 and later became an advisor to the 2008 Obama Presidential Campaign. Coincidence? You be the judge.
• Using Acorn for intimidation of reluctant lending institutions, the way was clear for banks to make sub-prime loans, (loans to people that had little probability of paying them back) bundle them, and sell those baskets of loans to unsuspecting domestic and international investors. Many were "non-performing," or worthless loans.
• Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac were prime lenders during the housing bubble.
o More than anything else, it was the Community Re-Investment Act and de-regulation of the banks that caused the housing bubble and the economic crises we find ourselves in today. Since January 3rd, 2007, the Democrats have created the greatest deficits, the recession, and set us up for the greatest financial disaster in the history of this country.
Sources: Any Google search
Showing posts with label Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Friday, November 4, 2011
HENRY LAMB: Obama the Administrator
Obama has taken off the gloves and abandoned all semblance of respect for the Constitution. He has declared war on Congress and is now testing every avenue he can find to advance his vision of an "Administrative" form of governance.
Barack Hussein Obama is rapidly becoming the Administrator that Colonel Edward Mandell House
fantasized about in his horrible novel, Philip Dru: Administrator.
Philip Dru said: "Our Constitution and our laws served us well for the first hundred years of our existence, but under the conditions of today they are not only obsolete, but even grotesque" (p. 222).
Barack Hussein Obama said: “The original Constitution, I think it is an imperfect document. I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws….”
Phillip Dru said: "...there were no legislative bodies sitting, and the function of law making was confined to one individual, the Administrator himself" (p.221).
Barack Hussein Obama said: “We can’t wait for a dysfunctional Congress….”
Barack Hussein Obama is trying to demonstrate that he can do what the Congress will not do, in order to appear to be a President worthy of re-election.
Obama swore to uphold the Constitution, even though he believes it is a flawed document. Instead, he ignores the Constitution at every opportunity.
His ‘Obamacare’ requires everyone to purchase a product, which exerts a federal power not granted by the
Constitution. The Constitution gives him no power to shut down and reorganize General Motors, or name a new board of directors and CEO, or nullify bonded debt to private investors. He did it anyway.
The Constitution requires him to execute all laws equally. He chooses to ignore immigration laws and marijuana laws, and chose not to prosecute black extremists who intimidated voters; an act that would not be tolerated from white extremists.
In the last week, Obama has issued at least six executive orders directing the federal government to take actions for which there may not be legislative authority. The announcement of each of these orders is a campaign event, claiming to create jobs- while the dysfunctional Congress fails to act. A closer look at what Obama is doing may well be much worse than the no-action taken by Congress.
His plan to refinance ‘underwater’ mortgages, for example, is worse than no action at all. It sounds great.
It sounds like needed action to the millions of people whose mortgage balance is higher than the value of their
home. His program will apply only to people whose mortgages are underwater and are already insured by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and whose payments are current. These requirements limit the number of people who may be eligible to a fraction of the number of people who hear his impassioned proclamation that he can no longer “…wait for Congress to act.”
In reality, his plan is worse than no action at all because every mortgage that is refinanced under Obama’s terms pushes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac deeper into red ink that tax payers will ultimately have to pay. Obama doesn’t care; it’s the campaign performance that’s important, not the economy.
His decision to have the federal government take over the college loan business was another action not authorized by the Constitution. Now his 'Help Americans Manage Student Loan Debt' proposal sounds good on the campaign trail, but does nothing to actually help students who are in real need of relief. Students who are behind on their payments are not eligible at all. Those who do qualify may get a half-percent reduction in interest rate.
Every action Obama takes, and every public word he speaks is toward one goal: re-election. He is convinced that the economic disaster in which he finds himself is Bush’s fault, or the fault of Republicans in Congress, or the fault of the tsunami in Japan, or all of these ‘headwinds,’ as he calls his failures.
His refusal to even talk to Republicans in Congress, or consider their proposals, is a clear signal that he has no interest in governing as the Constitution anticipates and directs. He will do whatever it takes to try to stay in power, and to consolidate that power through the appointment of more Czars, and judges who support his
extreme agenda. He will continue to denigrate Congress, especially Republicans and even Democrats who oppose his programs. He will continue to look for ways to exert administrative authority and power over every facet of society.
His Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency will
continue to hand out tax dollars to bribe communities to conform to the Administrator’s vision of a sustainable community. The Department of Energy will continue to tighten the rules governing the use of non-green energy sources, while the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve will continue to give dollars the nation doesn’t have, to green-energy companies, especially those whose executives and investors are among the donors to the Obama campaign fund.
The nation is witnessing a new breed of Administrator who is forming his own Administrative system of governance. The only hope of salvaging our Constitution is to bury Barack Hussein Obama – and his coconspirators in the House and Senate – so deep under opposition ballots that they will have to dig for a generation just to see daylight again.
America, let’s get ‘er done.
http://www.freedom21.org/Newsletters/nl-110411-1.pdf
Barack Hussein Obama is rapidly becoming the Administrator that Colonel Edward Mandell House
fantasized about in his horrible novel, Philip Dru: Administrator.
Philip Dru said: "Our Constitution and our laws served us well for the first hundred years of our existence, but under the conditions of today they are not only obsolete, but even grotesque" (p. 222).
Barack Hussein Obama said: “The original Constitution, I think it is an imperfect document. I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws….”
Phillip Dru said: "...there were no legislative bodies sitting, and the function of law making was confined to one individual, the Administrator himself" (p.221).
Barack Hussein Obama said: “We can’t wait for a dysfunctional Congress….”
Barack Hussein Obama is trying to demonstrate that he can do what the Congress will not do, in order to appear to be a President worthy of re-election.
Obama swore to uphold the Constitution, even though he believes it is a flawed document. Instead, he ignores the Constitution at every opportunity.
His ‘Obamacare’ requires everyone to purchase a product, which exerts a federal power not granted by the
Constitution. The Constitution gives him no power to shut down and reorganize General Motors, or name a new board of directors and CEO, or nullify bonded debt to private investors. He did it anyway.
The Constitution requires him to execute all laws equally. He chooses to ignore immigration laws and marijuana laws, and chose not to prosecute black extremists who intimidated voters; an act that would not be tolerated from white extremists.
In the last week, Obama has issued at least six executive orders directing the federal government to take actions for which there may not be legislative authority. The announcement of each of these orders is a campaign event, claiming to create jobs- while the dysfunctional Congress fails to act. A closer look at what Obama is doing may well be much worse than the no-action taken by Congress.
His plan to refinance ‘underwater’ mortgages, for example, is worse than no action at all. It sounds great.
It sounds like needed action to the millions of people whose mortgage balance is higher than the value of their
home. His program will apply only to people whose mortgages are underwater and are already insured by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and whose payments are current. These requirements limit the number of people who may be eligible to a fraction of the number of people who hear his impassioned proclamation that he can no longer “…wait for Congress to act.”
In reality, his plan is worse than no action at all because every mortgage that is refinanced under Obama’s terms pushes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac deeper into red ink that tax payers will ultimately have to pay. Obama doesn’t care; it’s the campaign performance that’s important, not the economy.
His decision to have the federal government take over the college loan business was another action not authorized by the Constitution. Now his 'Help Americans Manage Student Loan Debt' proposal sounds good on the campaign trail, but does nothing to actually help students who are in real need of relief. Students who are behind on their payments are not eligible at all. Those who do qualify may get a half-percent reduction in interest rate.
Every action Obama takes, and every public word he speaks is toward one goal: re-election. He is convinced that the economic disaster in which he finds himself is Bush’s fault, or the fault of Republicans in Congress, or the fault of the tsunami in Japan, or all of these ‘headwinds,’ as he calls his failures.
His refusal to even talk to Republicans in Congress, or consider their proposals, is a clear signal that he has no interest in governing as the Constitution anticipates and directs. He will do whatever it takes to try to stay in power, and to consolidate that power through the appointment of more Czars, and judges who support his
extreme agenda. He will continue to denigrate Congress, especially Republicans and even Democrats who oppose his programs. He will continue to look for ways to exert administrative authority and power over every facet of society.
His Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency will
continue to hand out tax dollars to bribe communities to conform to the Administrator’s vision of a sustainable community. The Department of Energy will continue to tighten the rules governing the use of non-green energy sources, while the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve will continue to give dollars the nation doesn’t have, to green-energy companies, especially those whose executives and investors are among the donors to the Obama campaign fund.
The nation is witnessing a new breed of Administrator who is forming his own Administrative system of governance. The only hope of salvaging our Constitution is to bury Barack Hussein Obama – and his coconspirators in the House and Senate – so deep under opposition ballots that they will have to dig for a generation just to see daylight again.
America, let’s get ‘er done.
http://www.freedom21.org/Newsletters/nl-110411-1.pdf
Monday, October 31, 2011
Obama Wants to Be King?
First it was “Yes, we can!” Then it was “Pass this bill!” Now the latest slogan from President Barack Obama is “We can’t wait.”
Expressing his frustration with Congress’s failure to pass his American Jobs Act and other initiatives, Obama told a Nevada audience on October 24: “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will.”
As The New American’s Raven Clabough reported the next day, Obama’s chosen means of circumventing the legislative process is to issue executive orders and other directives — at least one per week for the remainder of the year, aides said.
Obama’s first orders after announcing his new policy were: (1) to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to enable borrowers who owe more than their houses are worth to refinance at lower interest rates; (2) to reduce the size of student loan payments; and (3) to challenge community health centers to hire veterans. Only the third, an essentially meaningless gesture, is plainly within the President’s purview. The others — particularly the first, which could put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars in loan guarantees — “would generally be subjected to” congressional approval, Clabough noted.
“This isn't just a figurative slap in the face to both Congress and the rule of law; this is a kick in the groin,” asserted Mark J. Fitzgibbons at American Thinker. The President, after all, is only to “recommend to [Congress’s] consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient” and to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” according to Article II of the U.S. Constitution. “All legislative powers” are “vested” in Congress, says Article I. From a legal standpoint, therefore, Obama may only prod and plead with Congress to enact his agenda; he may not enact it by fiat.
CONTINUED:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/9576-obama-just-cant-wait-to-be-king
Expressing his frustration with Congress’s failure to pass his American Jobs Act and other initiatives, Obama told a Nevada audience on October 24: “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will.”
As The New American’s Raven Clabough reported the next day, Obama’s chosen means of circumventing the legislative process is to issue executive orders and other directives — at least one per week for the remainder of the year, aides said.
Obama’s first orders after announcing his new policy were: (1) to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to enable borrowers who owe more than their houses are worth to refinance at lower interest rates; (2) to reduce the size of student loan payments; and (3) to challenge community health centers to hire veterans. Only the third, an essentially meaningless gesture, is plainly within the President’s purview. The others — particularly the first, which could put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars in loan guarantees — “would generally be subjected to” congressional approval, Clabough noted.
“This isn't just a figurative slap in the face to both Congress and the rule of law; this is a kick in the groin,” asserted Mark J. Fitzgibbons at American Thinker. The President, after all, is only to “recommend to [Congress’s] consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient” and to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” according to Article II of the U.S. Constitution. “All legislative powers” are “vested” in Congress, says Article I. From a legal standpoint, therefore, Obama may only prod and plead with Congress to enact his agenda; he may not enact it by fiat.
CONTINUED:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/9576-obama-just-cant-wait-to-be-king
Friday, October 28, 2011
DC CALLER, BOB BARR: Dr. Obama’s Magical Mystery Giveaway Tour
All aboard Dr. Barack Obama’s Magical Mystery Bus Tour! If you live in one of the lucky cities and towns along the way, you too can be blessed by our marvelous and mystical commander-in-chief dispensing money, cure-alls and taxpayer elixirs at a rate not seen since the last great presidential flim-flam artist, Bill Clinton, took to the hustings.
Jobs one day; easy home refinancing the next. Health care. Social Security. Veterans benefits. Something for everyone!
With his signature American Jobs Act DOA in Congress, President Obama is trotting out a Hail Mary to Americans understandably weary of the still-faltering economy. Using his latest slogan, “We can’t wait,” as a backdrop, Obama is hawking various federal government programs, including the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), to boost his sagging poll numbers and buy the love of the electorate.
The White House hopes HARP will allow between 600,000 and 1 million homeowners with loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance their underwater mortgages and stave off foreclosure. As Reuters reports, Obama believes that expanding HARP “will help more homeowners refinance at lower rates, save consumers money and help get folks spending again”; in other words, he hopes it will magically cure the nagging recession in one fell swoop.
Like other Washington panaceas, this one sounds good. Mortgage rates have been pushed down by the Federal Reserve during the economy’s long downturn, which arguably would offer homeowners who take advantage of HARP extra cash each month and provide a shot in the arm to a terrible housing market. Reality, of course, is quite different.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/26/dr-obamas-magical-mystery-giveaway-tour/
Jobs one day; easy home refinancing the next. Health care. Social Security. Veterans benefits. Something for everyone!
With his signature American Jobs Act DOA in Congress, President Obama is trotting out a Hail Mary to Americans understandably weary of the still-faltering economy. Using his latest slogan, “We can’t wait,” as a backdrop, Obama is hawking various federal government programs, including the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), to boost his sagging poll numbers and buy the love of the electorate.
The White House hopes HARP will allow between 600,000 and 1 million homeowners with loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance their underwater mortgages and stave off foreclosure. As Reuters reports, Obama believes that expanding HARP “will help more homeowners refinance at lower rates, save consumers money and help get folks spending again”; in other words, he hopes it will magically cure the nagging recession in one fell swoop.
Like other Washington panaceas, this one sounds good. Mortgage rates have been pushed down by the Federal Reserve during the economy’s long downturn, which arguably would offer homeowners who take advantage of HARP extra cash each month and provide a shot in the arm to a terrible housing market. Reality, of course, is quite different.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/26/dr-obamas-magical-mystery-giveaway-tour/
Friday, January 7, 2011
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Morning Bell: Americans Are Fleeing Obama’s Crony Capitalist Economy
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/07/morning-bell-americans-are-fleeing-obamas-crony-capitalist-economy/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Today the Bureau of Labor and Statistics released its monthly jobs report showing that the U.S. economy added only 103,000 jobs this December. With the unemployment rate now at 9.4%, this marks the 20th month in a row that the unemployment has been over 9 percent, a post–World War II record. You are going to hear a lot of noise from the White House about how this drop from a 9.8% unemployment rate to 9.4% means the economy is in a strong recovery. This is false. The reality is that the only reason the unemployment rate dropped is because the U.S. labor force decreased by 434,000. More importantly 260,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force entirely. This means that the Obama economy is now driving Americans out of the labor force faster than it is bringing them.
This Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted out: “General Motors Co.’s sales were up 21 percent in 2010 for its four core brands.” Which is some interesting spin. As The Truth About Cars points out, GM’s retail market share for all of their brands actually fell a full 1.8 percent in 2010. So why is the President’s closest communication aide doing PR for what is, supposedly, a privately owned car company?
Yes, the Obama Administration did sell off a majority stake of their ownership of GM this November (at a $10 billion loss to taxpayers), but that still leaves them owning about a 37 percent share in the company. In other words, our government is still part owner of a supposedly private car company. And that is not the only continuing link between bailed-out GM and the Obama Administration. The Obama czar who oversaw the GM bailout, Ron Bloom, was just named the new czar for all of manufacturing policy at the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC). So we can expect to see continued favoritism for GM and its bailed-out brothers from the entire Obama Administration.
The manufacturing industry is not the only sector of the economy where the Administration has installed a bailout revolving door. Over just the last two months, the Obama White House has sent budget director Peter Orszag to Citibank ($306 billion bailout), taken in Gene Sperling as NEC director from Goldman Sachs (beneficiary of the $173 billion AIG bailout), and added former Fannie Mae ($135 billion bailout so far) lobbyist and JPMorgan ($12 billion bailout) executive Bill Daley as President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff. There is a phrase for an economy that is so dependent on close relationships between business people and government officials: crony capitalism. And it is strangling our economic recovery.
There is a better way. Instead of relying on bailouts, subsidies, tax loopholes, and regulations to pick and choose which politically connected firms succeed or fail, government should unleash entrepreneurs to create jobs through true free enterprise policies. Specifically, Congress should:
•Rescind unspent stimulus funds;
•Reform regulations—specifically repealing Section 404 of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act—to reduce unnecessary business costs;
•Remove barriers to domestic energy production;
•Suspend the job-killing Davis–Bacon Act and prohibit Project Labor Agreement requirements on federally funded construction projects;
•Conclude the pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, as well as the recently announced agreement with South Korea; and
•Reduce taxes on foreign earnings to encourage companies to repatriate the profits to America.
According to James Sherk, Karen Campbell, and John Ligon of the Center for Data Analysis, adopting these measures increase real gross domestic product by an average of $56 billion a year between 2011 and 2020, reduce the national debt by $305 billion by 2020, and increase job growth by 305,000 a year between 2011 and 2020.
This past June, marking the first anniversary of the Obama Administration’s destruction of our nation’s bankruptcy code, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) warned: “The nation is not safe from crony capitalism. In the past year we’ve experienced the nationalization of the student loan industry and the passage of national health-care and financial-services regulation, each of which is rife with new opportunities for government favoritism and preferential handouts to favored corporations like Chrysler.” Our economy will never reach its full potential as long as the best way to succeed in business is to succeed in Washington.
© 2011, The Heritage Foundation
Conservative policy research since 1973
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/07/morning-bell-americans-are-fleeing-obamas-crony-capitalist-economy/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Today the Bureau of Labor and Statistics released its monthly jobs report showing that the U.S. economy added only 103,000 jobs this December. With the unemployment rate now at 9.4%, this marks the 20th month in a row that the unemployment has been over 9 percent, a post–World War II record. You are going to hear a lot of noise from the White House about how this drop from a 9.8% unemployment rate to 9.4% means the economy is in a strong recovery. This is false. The reality is that the only reason the unemployment rate dropped is because the U.S. labor force decreased by 434,000. More importantly 260,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force entirely. This means that the Obama economy is now driving Americans out of the labor force faster than it is bringing them.
This Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted out: “General Motors Co.’s sales were up 21 percent in 2010 for its four core brands.” Which is some interesting spin. As The Truth About Cars points out, GM’s retail market share for all of their brands actually fell a full 1.8 percent in 2010. So why is the President’s closest communication aide doing PR for what is, supposedly, a privately owned car company?
Yes, the Obama Administration did sell off a majority stake of their ownership of GM this November (at a $10 billion loss to taxpayers), but that still leaves them owning about a 37 percent share in the company. In other words, our government is still part owner of a supposedly private car company. And that is not the only continuing link between bailed-out GM and the Obama Administration. The Obama czar who oversaw the GM bailout, Ron Bloom, was just named the new czar for all of manufacturing policy at the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC). So we can expect to see continued favoritism for GM and its bailed-out brothers from the entire Obama Administration.
The manufacturing industry is not the only sector of the economy where the Administration has installed a bailout revolving door. Over just the last two months, the Obama White House has sent budget director Peter Orszag to Citibank ($306 billion bailout), taken in Gene Sperling as NEC director from Goldman Sachs (beneficiary of the $173 billion AIG bailout), and added former Fannie Mae ($135 billion bailout so far) lobbyist and JPMorgan ($12 billion bailout) executive Bill Daley as President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff. There is a phrase for an economy that is so dependent on close relationships between business people and government officials: crony capitalism. And it is strangling our economic recovery.
There is a better way. Instead of relying on bailouts, subsidies, tax loopholes, and regulations to pick and choose which politically connected firms succeed or fail, government should unleash entrepreneurs to create jobs through true free enterprise policies. Specifically, Congress should:
•Rescind unspent stimulus funds;
•Reform regulations—specifically repealing Section 404 of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act—to reduce unnecessary business costs;
•Remove barriers to domestic energy production;
•Suspend the job-killing Davis–Bacon Act and prohibit Project Labor Agreement requirements on federally funded construction projects;
•Conclude the pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, as well as the recently announced agreement with South Korea; and
•Reduce taxes on foreign earnings to encourage companies to repatriate the profits to America.
According to James Sherk, Karen Campbell, and John Ligon of the Center for Data Analysis, adopting these measures increase real gross domestic product by an average of $56 billion a year between 2011 and 2020, reduce the national debt by $305 billion by 2020, and increase job growth by 305,000 a year between 2011 and 2020.
This past June, marking the first anniversary of the Obama Administration’s destruction of our nation’s bankruptcy code, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) warned: “The nation is not safe from crony capitalism. In the past year we’ve experienced the nationalization of the student loan industry and the passage of national health-care and financial-services regulation, each of which is rife with new opportunities for government favoritism and preferential handouts to favored corporations like Chrysler.” Our economy will never reach its full potential as long as the best way to succeed in business is to succeed in Washington.
© 2011, The Heritage Foundation
Conservative policy research since 1973
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Investigate This! By Ann Coulter
The Republicans are back in charge in the House of Representatives this week, and not a moment too soon!
Forget "stimulus" bills and "shovel-ready" bailouts (for public school teachers, who need shovels for what they're teaching), the current financial crisis, which is the second Great Depression, was created slowly and methodically by Democrat hacks running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the past 18 years.
As even Obama's treasury secretary admitted in congressional hearings, "Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system." And if it's something Tim Geithner noticed, it's probably something that's fairly obvious.
Goo-goo liberals with federal titles pressured banks into making absurd loans to high-risk borrowers -- demanding, for example, that the banks accept unemployment benefits as collateral. Then Fannie repackaged the bad loans as "prime mortgages" and sold them to banks, thus poisoning the entire financial market with hidden bad loans.
Believe it or not, the loans went belly up, banks went under, and the Democrats used taxpayer money to bail out their friends on Wall Street.
So far, Fannie and Freddie's default on loans that should never have been made has cost the taxpayer tens of billions of dollars. Some estimates say the final cost to the taxpayer will be more than $1 trillion. To put that number in perspective, for a trillion dollars, President Obama could pass another stupid, useless stimulus package that doesn't create a single real job.
Obama's own Federal Housing Finance Agency reported recently that by 2014, Freddie and Fannie will cost taxpayers between $221 billion to $363 billion.
Over and over again, Republicans tried to rein in the politically correct policies being foisted on mortgage lenders by Fannie Mae, only to be met by a Praetorian Guard of Democrats howling that Republicans hated the poor.
In 2003, Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee wrote a bill to tighten the lending regulation of Fannie and Freddie. Every single Democrat on the committee voted against it.
In the House, Barney Frank angrily proclaimed that Fannie Mae was "just fine."
Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., accused Republicans of going on a "witch hunt" against Fannie Mae and attempting a "political lynching of Franklin Raines" (which, in a game of "bad metaphor Scrabble" would have been a double word score).
Fannie was pressuring banks to write mortgages with no money down and no proof of income. What could go wrong?
In 2004, Bush's White House Chief Economist Gregory Mankiw warned that Fannie was creating "systemic risk for our financial system." In response, Barney Frank went to a champagne brunch with his partner "just because."
Democrats saw nothing of concern in the Fannie debacle. Bad mortgages don't contain sodium, do they? They don't engage in "hate speech." And they don't emit carbon dioxide. There was nothing to catch a Democrat's eye.
In 2005, when the housing bubble burst, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a bill allowing Fannie Mae to buy up even more schlock mortgages, apparently reasoning that if owning some toxic mortgages is bad, owning lots of them must be better!
He accused Republican opponents of his suicidal bill of being against affordable housing. (And that is a specific example of how liberals love the poor so much, they promoted policies to create millions more of them.)
As late as 2008, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who had received more than $133,000 in political contributions from Fannie Mae, called Fannie "fundamentally strong" and "in good shape" -- which is the kind of thing the Politburo used to say about Yuri Andropov right after he died.
(Amazingly, Dodd was only the second most embarrassing Democrat to run for president in 2008, but only because John Edwards was also running that year.)
As the titanic losses were racking up, Fannie Mae's operators, Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick, disguised the catastrophe by orchestrating a $5 billion accounting fraud -- all the while continuing to pressure banks to make absurd, politically correct loans and denouncing Republicans as enemies of the poor.
In Gorelick's defense, at least when she was wrecking the economy, she wasn't able to wreck national security by building any more walls between the FBI and the CIA.
Have you ever noticed that whenever there's a major calamity in this country, the name "Jamie Gorelick" always pops up? I think I'll pull some articles about the Great Chicago Fire from Nexis to see if there was a "Gorelick" living on Catherine O'Leary's block.
As Peter Schweizer points out in his magnificent book "Architects of Ruin," which everyone should read, Enron's accounting fraud was a paltry $567 million -- and it didn't bring down the entire financial system. Those involved in the Enron manipulations went to prison. Raines and Gorelick not only didn't go to jail, they walked away with multimillion-dollar payouts, courtesy of the taxpayer.
(Here's more fascinating Jamie Gorelick trivia: That giant wall she built between the FBI and the CIA, making 9/11 possible? It was financed with a risky loan from Fannie Mae.)
Under the Democrats' 2010 "Financial Reform" bill (written by Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Goldman Sachs), Raines keeps his $90 million, Jamie Gorelick keeps her $26.4 million, and Goldman keeps its $12 billion from the AIG bailout.
Let's get it back. Twelve billion, one hundred and sixteen point four million dollars might not sound like a lot to you, but it starts to add up.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41005
Forget "stimulus" bills and "shovel-ready" bailouts (for public school teachers, who need shovels for what they're teaching), the current financial crisis, which is the second Great Depression, was created slowly and methodically by Democrat hacks running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the past 18 years.
As even Obama's treasury secretary admitted in congressional hearings, "Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system." And if it's something Tim Geithner noticed, it's probably something that's fairly obvious.
Goo-goo liberals with federal titles pressured banks into making absurd loans to high-risk borrowers -- demanding, for example, that the banks accept unemployment benefits as collateral. Then Fannie repackaged the bad loans as "prime mortgages" and sold them to banks, thus poisoning the entire financial market with hidden bad loans.
Believe it or not, the loans went belly up, banks went under, and the Democrats used taxpayer money to bail out their friends on Wall Street.
So far, Fannie and Freddie's default on loans that should never have been made has cost the taxpayer tens of billions of dollars. Some estimates say the final cost to the taxpayer will be more than $1 trillion. To put that number in perspective, for a trillion dollars, President Obama could pass another stupid, useless stimulus package that doesn't create a single real job.
Obama's own Federal Housing Finance Agency reported recently that by 2014, Freddie and Fannie will cost taxpayers between $221 billion to $363 billion.
Over and over again, Republicans tried to rein in the politically correct policies being foisted on mortgage lenders by Fannie Mae, only to be met by a Praetorian Guard of Democrats howling that Republicans hated the poor.
In 2003, Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee wrote a bill to tighten the lending regulation of Fannie and Freddie. Every single Democrat on the committee voted against it.
In the House, Barney Frank angrily proclaimed that Fannie Mae was "just fine."
Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., accused Republicans of going on a "witch hunt" against Fannie Mae and attempting a "political lynching of Franklin Raines" (which, in a game of "bad metaphor Scrabble" would have been a double word score).
Fannie was pressuring banks to write mortgages with no money down and no proof of income. What could go wrong?
In 2004, Bush's White House Chief Economist Gregory Mankiw warned that Fannie was creating "systemic risk for our financial system." In response, Barney Frank went to a champagne brunch with his partner "just because."
Democrats saw nothing of concern in the Fannie debacle. Bad mortgages don't contain sodium, do they? They don't engage in "hate speech." And they don't emit carbon dioxide. There was nothing to catch a Democrat's eye.
In 2005, when the housing bubble burst, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a bill allowing Fannie Mae to buy up even more schlock mortgages, apparently reasoning that if owning some toxic mortgages is bad, owning lots of them must be better!
He accused Republican opponents of his suicidal bill of being against affordable housing. (And that is a specific example of how liberals love the poor so much, they promoted policies to create millions more of them.)
As late as 2008, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who had received more than $133,000 in political contributions from Fannie Mae, called Fannie "fundamentally strong" and "in good shape" -- which is the kind of thing the Politburo used to say about Yuri Andropov right after he died.
(Amazingly, Dodd was only the second most embarrassing Democrat to run for president in 2008, but only because John Edwards was also running that year.)
As the titanic losses were racking up, Fannie Mae's operators, Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick, disguised the catastrophe by orchestrating a $5 billion accounting fraud -- all the while continuing to pressure banks to make absurd, politically correct loans and denouncing Republicans as enemies of the poor.
In Gorelick's defense, at least when she was wrecking the economy, she wasn't able to wreck national security by building any more walls between the FBI and the CIA.
Have you ever noticed that whenever there's a major calamity in this country, the name "Jamie Gorelick" always pops up? I think I'll pull some articles about the Great Chicago Fire from Nexis to see if there was a "Gorelick" living on Catherine O'Leary's block.
As Peter Schweizer points out in his magnificent book "Architects of Ruin," which everyone should read, Enron's accounting fraud was a paltry $567 million -- and it didn't bring down the entire financial system. Those involved in the Enron manipulations went to prison. Raines and Gorelick not only didn't go to jail, they walked away with multimillion-dollar payouts, courtesy of the taxpayer.
(Here's more fascinating Jamie Gorelick trivia: That giant wall she built between the FBI and the CIA, making 9/11 possible? It was financed with a risky loan from Fannie Mae.)
Under the Democrats' 2010 "Financial Reform" bill (written by Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Goldman Sachs), Raines keeps his $90 million, Jamie Gorelick keeps her $26.4 million, and Goldman keeps its $12 billion from the AIG bailout.
Let's get it back. Twelve billion, one hundred and sixteen point four million dollars might not sound like a lot to you, but it starts to add up.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41005
Monday, June 28, 2010
Grassfire Nation Update: Congress is set to pass the "Dodd-Frank Act"
This week, Congress is set to pass the "Dodd-Frank Act" -- the latest 2,000+ page government makeover/takeover of our society.
National Review notes that the bill is aptly named after two of the leading causes of the financial crisis that precipitated the legislation -- noting that Frank led the push to extend home ownership to (quoting Frank) "people who might not on their own in a market situation be able to afford it" and rejected warnings of a housing market collapse. Dodd called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "one of the great success stories of all time" -- a success that has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
A citizen comment on a Wall Street Journal article on the Wall Street bill perhaps summed things up the best: "Another reason to throw the bums out."
Time to Flip This House 2010
Grassfire's "Flip This House 2010" campaign is designed to do just that -- but we need your help.
http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=29303&PID=22513281
Government takeover of the financial sector
The Dodd-Frank Act amounts to nothing less than a massive government takeover of the financial sector.
Here's how the Wall Street Journal describes the bill:
"In the name of responding to a crisis, the bill greatly increases the power of politicians and regulators without addressing the real causes of that crisis."
Even worse - it took over 2,000 pages and more than a year of backroom dealings that the main architect of the bill doesn't really know what the bill will do!
After claiming the bill marks a "great moment," Dodd then said... "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works."
It is actually very clear how this works. The Statists are once again seizing control of the economy and the people are left with one recourse... FLIP THIS HOUSE!
http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=29303&PID=22513281
National Review notes that the bill is aptly named after two of the leading causes of the financial crisis that precipitated the legislation -- noting that Frank led the push to extend home ownership to (quoting Frank) "people who might not on their own in a market situation be able to afford it" and rejected warnings of a housing market collapse. Dodd called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "one of the great success stories of all time" -- a success that has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
A citizen comment on a Wall Street Journal article on the Wall Street bill perhaps summed things up the best: "Another reason to throw the bums out."
Time to Flip This House 2010
Grassfire's "Flip This House 2010" campaign is designed to do just that -- but we need your help.
http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=29303&PID=22513281
Government takeover of the financial sector
The Dodd-Frank Act amounts to nothing less than a massive government takeover of the financial sector.
Here's how the Wall Street Journal describes the bill:
"In the name of responding to a crisis, the bill greatly increases the power of politicians and regulators without addressing the real causes of that crisis."
Even worse - it took over 2,000 pages and more than a year of backroom dealings that the main architect of the bill doesn't really know what the bill will do!
After claiming the bill marks a "great moment," Dodd then said... "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works."
It is actually very clear how this works. The Statists are once again seizing control of the economy and the people are left with one recourse... FLIP THIS HOUSE!
http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=29303&PID=22513281
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