Bush worst president in 100 years.

[Listening]

How long will [MENTION=49669]Dad2three[/MENTION] ignore this post?

The only fact that matters is the cited article in the OP refutes its own claim, and thus refutes the very premise of this thread.

From the article:

Yet it is Obama who was chosen by 33 per cent of those surveyed as the worst president of the modern era, while Bush came second, chosen as worst by 28 per cent.

A Gallup poll taken in 1992 found that Ronald Reagan was the most unpopular living president apart from Nixon, and ranked even below Jimmy Carter; just 46 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Reagan while Carter was viewed favorably by 63 percent of Americans.

This was before the Hollywood-style re-write of Reagan’s presidency that created the fictional character portrayed during Reagan’s 100th birthday celebration.



Vox Verax: The Whitewashing of Ronald Reagan

I noticed they didn't link the poll.

Of course, left wing rags will do that.

 

[Dad2three]

How long will [MENTION=49669]Dad2three[/MENTION] ignore this post?

The only fact that matters is the cited article in the OP refutes its own claim, and thus refutes the very premise of this thread.

From the article:

A Gallup poll taken in 1992 found that Ronald Reagan was the most unpopular living president apart from Nixon, and ranked even below Jimmy Carter; just 46 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Reagan while Carter was viewed favorably by 63 percent of Americans.

This was before the Hollywood-style re-write of Reagan’s presidency that created the fictional character portrayed during Reagan’s 100th birthday celebration.



Vox Verax: The Whitewashing of Ronald Reagan

I noticed they didn't link the poll.

Of course, left wing rags will do that.

From 20+ years ago? lol

How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan


With the Gipper's reputation flagging after Clinton, neoconservatives launched a stealthy campaign to remake him as a "great" president.



The myth of Ronald Reagan was already looming in the spring of 1997 — when a highly popular President Bill Clinton was launching his second-term, pre-Monica Lewinsky, and the Republican brand seemed at low ebb. But what neoconservative activist Grover Norquist and his allies proposed that spring was virtually unheard of — an active, mapped-out, audacious campaign to spread a distorted vision of Reagan’s legacy across America.

In a sense, some of the credit for triggering this may belong to those supposedly liberal editors at the New York Times, and their decision at the end of 1996 to publish that Arthur Schlesinger Jr. survey of the presidents. The below-average rating by the historians for Reagan, coming right on the heels of Clintons’ easy reelection victory, was a wake-up call for these people who came to Washington in the 1980s as the shock troops of a revolution and now saw everything slipping away.



How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan - Salon.com

 

[Vigilante]

 

[Listening]

A Gallup poll taken in 1992 found that Ronald Reagan was the most unpopular living president apart from Nixon, and ranked even below Jimmy Carter; just 46 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Reagan while Carter was viewed favorably by 63 percent of Americans.

This was before the Hollywood-style re-write of Reagan’s presidency that created the fictional character portrayed during Reagan’s 100th birthday celebration.



Vox Verax: The Whitewashing of Ronald Reagan

I noticed they didn't link the poll.

Of course, left wing rags will do that.

From 20+ years ago? lol

How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan


With the Gipper's reputation flagging after Clinton, neoconservatives launched a stealthy campaign to remake him as a "great" president.



The myth of Ronald Reagan was already looming in the spring of 1997 — when a highly popular President Bill Clinton was launching his second-term, pre-Monica Lewinsky, and the Republican brand seemed at low ebb. But what neoconservative activist Grover Norquist and his allies proposed that spring was virtually unheard of — an active, mapped-out, audacious campaign to spread a distorted vision of Reagan’s legacy across America.

In a sense, some of the credit for triggering this may belong to those supposedly liberal editors at the New York Times, and their decision at the end of 1996 to publish that Arthur Schlesinger Jr. survey of the presidents. The below-average rating by the historians for Reagan, coming right on the heels of Clintons’ easy reelection victory, was a wake-up call for these people who came to Washington in the 1980s as the shock troops of a revolution and now saw everything slipping away.



How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan - Salon.com

Can't argue with a poll....if it really exists.

Peoples perceptions are what they are.

Which is consistent....after all, Reagan barely won re-election in 1984 with only 49....oh, wait.

 

[Dad2three]

I noticed they didn't link the poll.

Of course, left wing rags will do that.

From 20+ years ago? lol

How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan


With the Gipper's reputation flagging after Clinton, neoconservatives launched a stealthy campaign to remake him as a "great" president.



The myth of Ronald Reagan was already looming in the spring of 1997 — when a highly popular President Bill Clinton was launching his second-term, pre-Monica Lewinsky, and the Republican brand seemed at low ebb. But what neoconservative activist Grover Norquist and his allies proposed that spring was virtually unheard of — an active, mapped-out, audacious campaign to spread a distorted vision of Reagan’s legacy across America.

In a sense, some of the credit for triggering this may belong to those supposedly liberal editors at the New York Times, and their decision at the end of 1996 to publish that Arthur Schlesinger Jr. survey of the presidents. The below-average rating by the historians for Reagan, coming right on the heels of Clintons’ easy reelection victory, was a wake-up call for these people who came to Washington in the 1980s as the shock troops of a revolution and now saw everything slipping away.



How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan - Salon.com

Can't argue with a poll....if it really exists.

Peoples perceptions are what they are.

Which is consistent....after all, Reagan barely won re-election in 1984 with only 49....oh, wait.

And Obama won 50%+ in two straight elections, something Ronnie DIDN'T do. Go figure

(Correction, 51%, Obama first in 5 decades to do that twice)

 

[Vigilante]

From 20+ years ago? lol

How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan


With the Gipper's reputation flagging after Clinton, neoconservatives launched a stealthy campaign to remake him as a "great" president.



The myth of Ronald Reagan was already looming in the spring of 1997 — when a highly popular President Bill Clinton was launching his second-term, pre-Monica Lewinsky, and the Republican brand seemed at low ebb. But what neoconservative activist Grover Norquist and his allies proposed that spring was virtually unheard of — an active, mapped-out, audacious campaign to spread a distorted vision of Reagan’s legacy across America.

In a sense, some of the credit for triggering this may belong to those supposedly liberal editors at the New York Times, and their decision at the end of 1996 to publish that Arthur Schlesinger Jr. survey of the presidents. The below-average rating by the historians for Reagan, coming right on the heels of Clintons’ easy reelection victory, was a wake-up call for these people who came to Washington in the 1980s as the shock troops of a revolution and now saw everything slipping away.



How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan - Salon.com

Can't argue with a poll....if it really exists.

Peoples perceptions are what they are.

Which is consistent....after all, Reagan barely won re-election in 1984 with only 49....oh, wait.

And Obama won 50%+ in two straight elections, something Ronnie DIDN'T do. Go figure

Yes, FREE SHIT and a $7 TRILLION addition to the debt is a powerful tool when BUYING VOTES!

 

[Dad2three]

Can't argue with a poll....if it really exists.

Peoples perceptions are what they are.

Which is consistent....after all, Reagan barely won re-election in 1984 with only 49....oh, wait.

And Obama won 50%+ in two straight elections, something Ronnie DIDN'T do. Go figure

Yes, FREE SHIT and a $7 TRILLION addition to the debt is a powerful tool when BUYING VOTES!

Red States Mostly Welfare States Dependent On Blue States But Likely Too Uninformed to Know



Red States Mostly Welfare States Dependent On Blue States But Likely Too Uninformed to Know


Among the 254 counties where food stamp recipients doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican Mitt Romney won 213 of them in last year’s presidential election, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data compiled by Bloomberg. Kentucky’s Owsley County, which backed Romney with 81 percent of its vote, has the largest proportion of food stamp recipients among those that he carried.


Food Stamp Cut Backed by Republicans With Voters on Rolls - Bloomberg



Dubya first F/Y budget begins

National Debt Oct 1, 2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06.


OBAMA FIRST F/Y BUDGET BEGINS

National Debt Oct 1, 2009 $11,920,519,164,319.42


We already know what economic policies work best for our country. Clinton knew that we had to cut spending and increase revenues. We had revenues of 20.6% of GDP and a surplus in 2001 F/Y. Then something terrible happened, the Republicans gained complete control in 2001 and instead of sticking with what was working they decided that their ideology was more important. The debt has gone up $12 trillion since then.

CBO: Bush Tax Cuts Responsible For Almost A Third Of Deficit In Last 10 Years (2001-2010)

 

[Vigilante]

The fact is if you look at all the indicators the day Newt Gingrich was elected speaker, virtually all the economic growth occurs after Republicans take control, as a matter of fact, all the increase in the stock market is after Republicans take control of Congress!

Go look it up!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The worst part is that my tax dollars pay Dad2 to spread his Progressive disinformation

 

[Dayton3]

From 20+ years ago? lol

How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan


With the Gipper's reputation flagging after Clinton, neoconservatives launched a stealthy campaign to remake him as a "great" president.



The myth of Ronald Reagan was already looming in the spring of 1997 — when a highly popular President Bill Clinton was launching his second-term, pre-Monica Lewinsky, and the Republican brand seemed at low ebb. But what neoconservative activist Grover Norquist and his allies proposed that spring was virtually unheard of — an active, mapped-out, audacious campaign to spread a distorted vision of Reagan’s legacy across America.

In a sense, some of the credit for triggering this may belong to those supposedly liberal editors at the New York Times, and their decision at the end of 1996 to publish that Arthur Schlesinger Jr. survey of the presidents. The below-average rating by the historians for Reagan, coming right on the heels of Clintons’ easy reelection victory, was a wake-up call for these people who came to Washington in the 1980s as the shock troops of a revolution and now saw everything slipping away.



How Republicans created the myth of Ronald Reagan - Salon.com

Can't argue with a poll....if it really exists.

Peoples perceptions are what they are.

Which is consistent....after all, Reagan barely won re-election in 1984 with only 49....oh, wait.

And Obama won 50%+ in two straight elections, something Ronnie DIDN'T do. Go figure

Very wrong. Ronald Reagan won more than 50% of the popular vote in both 1980 and 1984.

And in 1980 it was with John Anderson, a Republican running a 3rd party campaign that pretty much took most of its support (just over 5% IIRC) from would be Reagan voters.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

FACT: Liberal Public Policy caused the mortgage crisis by mandating eased requirements for lending, even to people who had no chance of ever paying the loan back. If banks and other lending institutions did not comply, their "score" from the SEC was too low to permit certain business transactions such as merges, etc. This is nothing less than a gun held to the head.

FACT: Many lending institutions were sued or otherwise pressured by ACORN, forcing them to make loans to folks who didn't qualify nor had any chance of ever repaying that loan.

FACT: HUD (Housing and Urban Development) under Andrew Cuomo, head of HUD) browbeat banks to make loans to folks who they knew couldn't pay them back.
FACT: Many lending institutions were sued or otherwise pressured by ACORN, forcing them to make loans to folks who didn't qualify nor had any chance of ever repaying that loan. IN FACT, BARACK OBAMA WAS INVOLVED IN AT LEAST ONE OF THESE LAWSUITS



FACT: Fannie Mae's sole purpose for being was to offer a Federal Guarantee of loans. So banks and other lending institutions didn't need to worry about thing. If a loan went bad, Fannie Mae was there to pick up the pieces (until there were too many pieces to pick up)

FACT: The Democrats stacked the operations of Fannie Mae with other Democrats who then cooked the books (FM had to pay MILLIONS in fines to the SEC over this) and took HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in bonuses and funneled MILLIONS in campaign contributions to members of Congress. Franklin Raines (part of the Obama Administration) personally took 90 million dollars despite Fannie Mae's fines and fraud.

FACT: Bill Clinton turned a blind eye to all of this during most of the 90's. In fact, he worsened the situation in 1995 by making the CRA even more lopsided and requiring even MORE bad loans. One thing he did was to force lending institutions to accept up to 31% of one's income for a mortgage whereas previously it was only 25%

FACT: The Democrats who run Fannie Mae took hundreds of millions in bonuses while Congressional Dems provided cover, including Charlie Rangel , Chris Dodd , Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

FACT: Democrat Chris Dodd was #1 recipient with Democrat Barack Obama being #2 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac

FACT: The Democrats blocked every attempt by Republicans to investigate Fannie Mae and its business practices. In fact, the Bush Administration made over 30 attempts over his two terms in office only to have the Democrats block every one through parliamentary procedures as the Republicans, while controlling both Houses, NEVER had a super majority so the Dems could block anything they pleased (case in point - judicial nominees)





http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print


Quote:
September 11, 2003
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
Note the date


Quote:
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.
http://www.bucksright.com/bush-propo...n-in-2003-1141


Quote:
A September 11, 2003 New York Times article shows that President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” His proposal: An agency within the Treasury Department to supervise mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fearing that mortgages would no longer be available to people who were unable to pay them back, Democrats eventually killed the proposal. The current meltdown in the mortgage industry is a direct result of giving mortgages to people who could not pay them back, a practice protected by Congressional Democrats.

Both entities were recently taken over by the government, a move that puts trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

But Democrats in Congress, also known as “the caucus perpetually on the wrong side of history,” were having none of this “responsibility” stuff.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

The proposal worked its way around Congress for a couple of years. Efforts at reform of the kind proposed by President Bush were shot down by Democrats each time.

In 2005, Republican Mike Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, brought up a reform bill (H.R. 1461), and Fannie and Freddie’s lobbyists set out to weaken it.

[...]

During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, [Democrat in bed with the mortgage industry Chris] Dodd — who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 — actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation.

According to OpenSecrets.org, between 1988 and 2008 Dodd received $133,900, Kerry $111,000, Clinton $75,550, and Obama — in only 143 days in the Senate — received a whopping $105,849 from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Pennsylvania Democrat representative Paul Kanjorksi, who also opposed new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, was given more than any other member of the House of Representatives. He was paid $65,500 by representatives of these entities.

And, in case you were wondering, John McCain co-sponsored a bill requiring greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac regulation in 2005. It was also blocked procedurally by Democrats.

The 2003 New York Times article was unearthed by a Free Republic poster.

UPDATE: 2004 video posted to YouTube shows Republicans arguing for, and Democrats arguing against, regulations that would have saved us from the current crisis.
http://www.bucksright.com/congressma...ge-crisis-1451


Quote:
Congressman Sorry Democrats Dropped Ball On Mortgage Crisis
Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:55 am Posted by Steven in Economy

After being featured on Hannity & Colmes in a damning 2004 video showing Democrats fighting tooth-and-nail against greater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, Democrat Congressman Artur Davis admits Democrats dropped the ball on reigning in the failed institutions and calls on fellow Democrats to do the same.

“Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues, I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit that when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. By the way, I wish my Republican colleagues would admit that they missed the early warning signs that Wall Street deregulation was overheating the securities market and promoting dangerously lax lending practices. When it comes to the debacle in our capital markets, there is much blame to go around for both sides.”

Along with President Clinton, I take issue with Davis’ contention that equal blame exists on both sides. President Bush requested greater oversight in 2003, Republicans are clearly seen in the video fighting for greater oversight in 2004, and John McCain led the charge for greater oversight in 2005. All efforts were rebuffed by Democrats, who demagogued the issue with racial politics that made reform impossible to accomplish. At least they tried. I see no evidence of any push toward greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac oversight since the short bus rolled onto Capitol Hill in January 2007.

That said, I appreciate Congressman Davis’ candor in admitting Democrats let their ideology get in the way of what was right for the country.

MORE RIGHT WING GARBAGE, I'm shocked

Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

Let's take a look at that timeline under President Bush directly from the mouths of our representatives in Congress, and the mortgage crisis through the government oversight of Freedie Mae and Freddie Mac.

September 1999

With pressure from the Clinton Administration, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on loans it would purchase from lenders, making it easier for banks to lend to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. Raines explained that "there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market," reported the New York Times.

With this action, Fannie Mae put itself at substantial risk in the event of an economic downturn. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," warned Peter Wallison. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The danger was known.


March 2000

Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.

Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."


June 2000

Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): "very few banks or S&Ls could, even in this day and age, even now, meet the stress-testing requirements which Fannie and Freddie are required to meet."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) regarding the Treasury Department line of credit: "It is really symbolic, it is obsolete, it has never been used." "Would you explain why it would be important to repeal something that seems to be of little use?"

Smith: "as long as the pipeline is there, it is like it is very expandable. . . . It is only $2 billion today. It could be $200 billion tomorrow."

Because of Democrat obfuscation, Smith's "tomorrow" arrived in 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship.


February 2003

OFHEO reports that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations . . . the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them," warning that unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market, according to a White House release.


June 2003

Freddie Mac reported it had understated its profits by $6.9 billion. OFHEO director Armando Falcon Jr. requested that the White House audit Fannie Mae.


July 2003

Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats.


September 2003

In an interview with Ron Insana for CNN Money, Rep. Baker warned, "I have concerns that if appropriate resources aren't allocated for internal risk management, the consequences will be far more severe than just a real estate slowdown. The losses would fall quickly through the capital these companies have and down to shareholders and taxpayers. These companies have some of the lowest capital margins of any financial institution in the nation, yet, at the same time, they are two of the largest. The concern is that if something doesn't work out the way they predict, the American taxpayer could be called on to pay off the debt in some sort of bailout."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "These two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis. . . . The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."


October 2003

Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.


November 2003

Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, "The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system," from a White House release.


February 2004

Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator," says a White House release.

OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign "by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up." Again, GSE pressure prevailed.


October 2004

In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.' I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn't have been a bonus that year."

"The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006," reports the Wall Street Journal.

Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios "poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs] . . . should one get into financial trouble." He added, "If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis . . . We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership."

Greenspan warned that if the GSEs "continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road . . . We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk."

Bloomberg writes, "If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then."



April 2007

In "A Nightmare Grows Darker," the New York Times writes that the "democratization of credit" is "turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers." The "newfangled mortgage loans" called "affordability loans" "represent 60 percent of foreclosures."


2007-2008

The housing bubble began to burst, bad mortgages began to default, and finally the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios were revealed to be what they were, in collapse. And the testimony is evident as to why. As Wallison noted, "Fannie and Freddie were, I would say, the poster children for corporate welfare."

Archived-Articles: Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

Who thinks Obama walks on water? He's the second best conservative Prez since Ike, only BJ Bill was better!

READ THE POST YOU STUPID ASS

I said, "he could walk on water" and it would not matter right now.

The poll shows a significant portion of the population thinks he sucks.

That does not make them right or wrong. It is their opinion.

Opinions, are like assholes...I like FACTUAL data. Dubya lost 673,000+ PRIVATE sector jobs in 8 years and 5+ million have been created under Obama. That's just one data point!

If the econony under President Obama helped to create that many jobs, why did Harry Reid push for federal unemployment extensions as a priority earlier this year, while the House didn't feel we could afford it under this administration's skyrocketing national debt and losing our AAA credit rating for the first time in our nation's history?

 

[Vigilante]

Just how many LIES do we have to catch this asshole, Dud2three before we simply ignore him, he's on par with KNoB, and Franco!....OCD is his friend!

 

[deltex1]

Only right-wing loons would see it otherwise. Us neutrals and the left have said this all along.

Bush worst president in 100 years.

One assholes opinion....why continue this stupid thread?

 

[Listening]

Only right-wing loons would see it otherwise. Us neutrals and the left have said this all along.

Bush worst president in 100 years.

One assholes opinion....why continue this stupid thread?

I agree.....

All we are seeing is the constant bleating that shows up on other threads.

This post should have been a discussion of how perceptions could have been so different.

Or why they got the way they got.

Instead.....all we hear is......

 

[Dad2three]

The fact is if you look at all the indicators the day Newt Gingrich was elected speaker, virtually all the economic growth occurs after Republicans take control, as a matter of fact, all the increase in the stock market is after Republicans take control of Congress!

Go look it up!

Yes, because in right wing world EVERYTHING turns on a dime in an economy as large as the US economy is *shaking head*

Weird how well the GOP did with Bush in charge AND a GOP Congress right?

David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy.

The “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”

Cue the FoxNews denunciations.

David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan


David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy. | ThinkProgress



The Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts was a statement signed by roughly 450 economists, including ten of the twenty-four American Nobel Prize laureates alive at the time, in February 2003 who urged the U.S. President George W. Bush not to enact the 2003 tax cuts; seeking and sought to gather public support for the position. The statement was printed as a full-page ad in The New York Times and released to the public through the Economic Policy Institute. According to the statement, the 450 plus economists who signed the statement believe that the 2003 Bush tax cuts will increase inequality and the budget deficit, decreasing the ability of the U.S. government to fund essential services, while failing to produce economic growth.



In rebuttal, 250 plus economists who supported the tax plan wrote that the new plan would "create more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans."


WHICH GROUP WAS CORRECT? LOL


Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dad2three]

FACT: Liberal Public Policy caused the mortgage crisis by mandating eased requirements for lending, even to people who had no chance of ever paying the loan back. If banks and other lending institutions did not comply, their "score" from the SEC was too low to permit certain business transactions such as merges, etc. This is nothing less than a gun held to the head.

FACT: Many lending institutions were sued or otherwise pressured by ACORN, forcing them to make loans to folks who didn't qualify nor had any chance of ever repaying that loan.

FACT: HUD (Housing and Urban Development) under Andrew Cuomo, head of HUD) browbeat banks to make loans to folks who they knew couldn't pay them back.
FACT: Many lending institutions were sued or otherwise pressured by ACORN, forcing them to make loans to folks who didn't qualify nor had any chance of ever repaying that loan. IN FACT, BARACK OBAMA WAS INVOLVED IN AT LEAST ONE OF THESE LAWSUITS



FACT: Fannie Mae's sole purpose for being was to offer a Federal Guarantee of loans. So banks and other lending institutions didn't need to worry about thing. If a loan went bad, Fannie Mae was there to pick up the pieces (until there were too many pieces to pick up)

FACT: The Democrats stacked the operations of Fannie Mae with other Democrats who then cooked the books (FM had to pay MILLIONS in fines to the SEC over this) and took HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in bonuses and funneled MILLIONS in campaign contributions to members of Congress. Franklin Raines (part of the Obama Administration) personally took 90 million dollars despite Fannie Mae's fines and fraud.

FACT: Bill Clinton turned a blind eye to all of this during most of the 90's. In fact, he worsened the situation in 1995 by making the CRA even more lopsided and requiring even MORE bad loans. One thing he did was to force lending institutions to accept up to 31% of one's income for a mortgage whereas previously it was only 25%

FACT: The Democrats who run Fannie Mae took hundreds of millions in bonuses while Congressional Dems provided cover, including Charlie Rangel , Chris Dodd , Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

FACT: Democrat Chris Dodd was #1 recipient with Democrat Barack Obama being #2 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac

FACT: The Democrats blocked every attempt by Republicans to investigate Fannie Mae and its business practices. In fact, the Bush Administration made over 30 attempts over his two terms in office only to have the Democrats block every one through parliamentary procedures as the Republicans, while controlling both Houses, NEVER had a super majority so the Dems could block anything they pleased (case in point - judicial nominees)





http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print


Quote:
September 11, 2003
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
Note the date


Quote:
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.
http://www.bucksright.com/bush-propo...n-in-2003-1141


Quote:
A September 11, 2003 New York Times article shows that President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” His proposal: An agency within the Treasury Department to supervise mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fearing that mortgages would no longer be available to people who were unable to pay them back, Democrats eventually killed the proposal. The current meltdown in the mortgage industry is a direct result of giving mortgages to people who could not pay them back, a practice protected by Congressional Democrats.

Both entities were recently taken over by the government, a move that puts trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

But Democrats in Congress, also known as “the caucus perpetually on the wrong side of history,” were having none of this “responsibility” stuff.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

The proposal worked its way around Congress for a couple of years. Efforts at reform of the kind proposed by President Bush were shot down by Democrats each time.

In 2005, Republican Mike Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, brought up a reform bill (H.R. 1461), and Fannie and Freddie’s lobbyists set out to weaken it.

[...]

During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, [Democrat in bed with the mortgage industry Chris] Dodd — who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 — actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation.

According to OpenSecrets.org, between 1988 and 2008 Dodd received $133,900, Kerry $111,000, Clinton $75,550, and Obama — in only 143 days in the Senate — received a whopping $105,849 from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Pennsylvania Democrat representative Paul Kanjorksi, who also opposed new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, was given more than any other member of the House of Representatives. He was paid $65,500 by representatives of these entities.

And, in case you were wondering, John McCain co-sponsored a bill requiring greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac regulation in 2005. It was also blocked procedurally by Democrats.

The 2003 New York Times article was unearthed by a Free Republic poster.

UPDATE: 2004 video posted to YouTube shows Republicans arguing for, and Democrats arguing against, regulations that would have saved us from the current crisis.
http://www.bucksright.com/congressma...ge-crisis-1451


Quote:
Congressman Sorry Democrats Dropped Ball On Mortgage Crisis
Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:55 am Posted by Steven in Economy

After being featured on Hannity & Colmes in a damning 2004 video showing Democrats fighting tooth-and-nail against greater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, Democrat Congressman Artur Davis admits Democrats dropped the ball on reigning in the failed institutions and calls on fellow Democrats to do the same.

“Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues, I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit that when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. By the way, I wish my Republican colleagues would admit that they missed the early warning signs that Wall Street deregulation was overheating the securities market and promoting dangerously lax lending practices. When it comes to the debacle in our capital markets, there is much blame to go around for both sides.”

Along with President Clinton, I take issue with Davis’ contention that equal blame exists on both sides. President Bush requested greater oversight in 2003, Republicans are clearly seen in the video fighting for greater oversight in 2004, and John McCain led the charge for greater oversight in 2005. All efforts were rebuffed by Democrats, who demagogued the issue with racial politics that made reform impossible to accomplish. At least they tried. I see no evidence of any push toward greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac oversight since the short bus rolled onto Capitol Hill in January 2007.

That said, I appreciate Congressman Davis’ candor in admitting Democrats let their ideology get in the way of what was right for the country.

MORE RIGHT WING GARBAGE, I'm shocked

Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

Let's take a look at that timeline under President Bush directly from the mouths of our representatives in Congress, and the mortgage crisis through the government oversight of Freedie Mae and Freddie Mac.

September 1999

With pressure from the Clinton Administration, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on loans it would purchase from lenders, making it easier for banks to lend to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. Raines explained that "there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market," reported the New York Times.

With this action, Fannie Mae put itself at substantial risk in the event of an economic downturn. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," warned Peter Wallison. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The danger was known.


March 2000

Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.

Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."


June 2000

Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): "very few banks or S&Ls could, even in this day and age, even now, meet the stress-testing requirements which Fannie and Freddie are required to meet."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) regarding the Treasury Department line of credit: "It is really symbolic, it is obsolete, it has never been used." "Would you explain why it would be important to repeal something that seems to be of little use?"

Smith: "as long as the pipeline is there, it is like it is very expandable. . . . It is only $2 billion today. It could be $200 billion tomorrow."

Because of Democrat obfuscation, Smith's "tomorrow" arrived in 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship.


February 2003

OFHEO reports that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations . . . the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them," warning that unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market, according to a White House release.


June 2003

Freddie Mac reported it had understated its profits by $6.9 billion. OFHEO director Armando Falcon Jr. requested that the White House audit Fannie Mae.


July 2003

Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats.


September 2003

In an interview with Ron Insana for CNN Money, Rep. Baker warned, "I have concerns that if appropriate resources aren't allocated for internal risk management, the consequences will be far more severe than just a real estate slowdown. The losses would fall quickly through the capital these companies have and down to shareholders and taxpayers. These companies have some of the lowest capital margins of any financial institution in the nation, yet, at the same time, they are two of the largest. The concern is that if something doesn't work out the way they predict, the American taxpayer could be called on to pay off the debt in some sort of bailout."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "These two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis. . . . The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."


October 2003

Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.


November 2003

Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, "The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system," from a White House release.


February 2004

Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator," says a White House release.

OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign "by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up." Again, GSE pressure prevailed.


October 2004

In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.' I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn't have been a bonus that year."

"The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006," reports the Wall Street Journal.

Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios "poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs] . . . should one get into financial trouble." He added, "If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis . . . We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership."

Greenspan warned that if the GSEs "continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road . . . We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk."

Bloomberg writes, "If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then."



April 2007

In "A Nightmare Grows Darker," the New York Times writes that the "democratization of credit" is "turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers." The "newfangled mortgage loans" called "affordability loans" "represent 60 percent of foreclosures."


2007-2008

The housing bubble began to burst, bad mortgages began to default, and finally the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios were revealed to be what they were, in collapse. And the testimony is evident as to why. As Wallison noted, "Fannie and Freddie were, I would say, the poster children for corporate welfare."

Archived-Articles: Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened

WEIRD, WHY BRING UP ANYTHING BEFORE LATE 2004 ABOUT F/F WHEN THE BUSH GROUP AND FEDERAL RESERVE AS WELL AS OTHER ACADEMICS SAY THE BUSH SUBPRIME CRISIS HAPPENED?

The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets OCT 2008

ONE BILL ON GSE REFORM MADE IT OUT OF EITHER GOP HOUSE OF CONGRESS 2001-2007

October 26, 2005

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

The Administration strongly believes that the housing GSEs should be focused on their core housing mission, particularly with respect to low-income Americans and first-time homebuyers. Instead, provisions of H.R. 1461 that expand mortgage purchasing authority would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers.

George W. Bush: Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005


George W. Bush: Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005

Yes, he said he was against it because it "would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers".


DEMS BLOCKED IT HUH? PLEASE GIVE ME LINKS TO ANY BILL THAT WAS BLOCKED IN THE GOP HOUSE WHERE SIMPLE MAJORITY RULES OR ANY FILIBUSTERED BILLS IN THE GOP SENATE? PRETTY PLEASE?


Here's what the House Republican Mike Oxley(R) , Chairman of the House Financial Services committee said


“Instead, the Ohio Republican who headed the House financial services committee until his retirement after mid-term elections last year, blames the mess on ideologues within the White House as well as Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve.


The critics have forgotten that the House passed a GSE reform bill in 2005 that could well have prevented the current crisis, says Mr Oxley,(R) now vice-chairman of Nasdaq.”

“What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”

Oxley was Chairman of the House Financial Services committee and sponsor of the only reform bill to pass any chamber of the republican controlled congress

LOL

UNTIL BUSH CREATED THE SUBPRIME CRISIS, STARTING IN LATE 2004, GSE'S WEREN'T IN TROUBLE, ACCORDING TO BUSH



SEPTEMBER 10, 2003

Testimony from W’s Treasury Secretary John Snow to the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS concerning the 'regulation’ of the GSE’s
“
Mr. Frank: ...Are we in a crisis now with these entities?

Secretary Snow. No, that is a fair characterization, Congressman Frank, of our position. We are not putting this proposal before you because of some concern over some imminent danger to the financial system for housing; far from it.“


- THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT'S VIEWS ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES



Strong opposition by the Bush administration forced a top Republican congressman to delay a vote on a bill that would create a new regulator for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


Oxley pulls Fannie, Freddie bill under heat from Bush - MarketWatch



Bush forced Freddie and Fannie to purchase more low income home loans, $440 billion in MBSs and then reversed the Clinton rule that actually reigned in Freddie and Fannie


June 17, 2004

Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.

Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


"(In 2000, CLINTON) HUD restricted Freddie and Fannie, saying it would not credit them for loans they purchased that had abusively high costs or that were granted without regard to the borrower's ability to repay."

How HUD Mortgage Policy Fed The Crisis

"In 2004 (BUUSSHHH) , the 2000 rules were dropped and high‐risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals."

http://www.prmia.org/sites/default/files/references/Fannie_Mae_and_Freddie_Mac_090911_v2.pdf




Freddie Mac Paid GOP Consulting Firm $2M To Kill Legislation



Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.


In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.



Unknown to the senators, DCI was undermining support for the bill in a campaign targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The states and the senators targeted changed over time, but always stayed on the Republican side.


Freddie Mac Paid GOP Consulting Firm $2M To Kill Legislation



We want more people owning their own home in America," Bush said. His goal is to have 5.5 million minority homeowners in the country by the end of the decade.

March 26, 2004

Bush Ties Policy to Record Home Ownership

Bush Ties Policy to Record Home Ownership | Fox News



We have also relaxed some of our underwriting criteria to obtain goals-qualifying mortgage loans and increased our investments in higher-risk mortgage loan products that are more likely to serve the borrowers targeted by HUD’s goals and subgoals,

http://www.responsiblelending.org/m...dards-for-Qualified-Residential-Mortgages.pdf


HOLY COW! Bush forced them to lower their standards. If only somebody had warned us that Bush's policies would hurt Freddie and Fannie. Wait, somebody did.



Fannie, Freddie to Suffer Under New Rule, Frank Says

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would suffer financially under a Bush administration requirement that they channel more mortgage financing to people with low incomes, said the senior Democrat on a congressional panel that sets regulations for the companies.


So if your narrative is "GSEs are to blame" then you have to blame bush


http://democrats.financialservices....s/112/06-17-04-new-Fannie-goals-Bloomberg.pdf



Wall Street, Not Fannie and Freddie, Led Mortgage Meltdown



Government data show Fannie and Freddie didn’t take the same risks that Wall Street’s mortgage-backed securities machine did. Mortgages financed by Wall Street from 2001 to 2008 were 4½ times more likely to be seriously delinquent than mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie.


“The idea that they were leading this charge is just absurd,” said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, an authoritative trade publication. “Fannie and Freddie have always had the tightest underwriting on earth…They were opposite of subprime.”


Wall Street, Not Fannie and Freddie, Led Mortgage Meltdown - The Daily Beast

 

[Vigilante]

The fact is if you look at all the indicators the day Newt Gingrich was elected speaker, virtually all the economic growth occurs after Republicans take control, as a matter of fact, all the increase in the stock market is after Republicans take control of Congress!

Go look it up!

Yes, because in right wing world EVERYTHING turns on a dime in an economy as large as the US economy is *shaking head*

Weird how well the GOP did with Bush in charge AND a GOP Congress right?

David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy.

The “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”

Cue the FoxNews denunciations.

David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan


David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy. | ThinkProgress



The Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts was a statement signed by roughly 450 economists, including ten of the twenty-four American Nobel Prize laureates alive at the time, in February 2003 who urged the U.S. President George W. Bush not to enact the 2003 tax cuts; seeking and sought to gather public support for the position. The statement was printed as a full-page ad in The New York Times and released to the public through the Economic Policy Institute. According to the statement, the 450 plus economists who signed the statement believe that the 2003 Bush tax cuts will increase inequality and the budget deficit, decreasing the ability of the U.S. government to fund essential services, while failing to produce economic growth.



In rebuttal, 250 plus economists who supported the tax plan wrote that the new plan would "create more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans."


WHICH GROUP WAS CORRECT? LOL


Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

More SPIN and LEFTIST OPINION! This shithead already posted EVERYONE had part of the blame, and now he's back peddling! Oh, the entertainment, and the display of OCD on Clinton's involvement is monumental!..... How many leftist scientists and government hacks say GW is man made???...(Obuma, send those guys there GRANT MONEY!!!).ROTFLMFAO!!!!

 

[Dad2three]

FACT: Liberal Public Policy caused the mortgage crisis by mandating eased requirements for lending, even to people who had no chance of ever paying the loan back. If banks and other lending institutions did not comply, their "score" from the SEC was too low to permit certain business transactions such as merges, etc. This is nothing less than a gun held to the head.

FACT: Many lending institutions were sued or otherwise pressured by ACORN, forcing them to make loans to folks who didn't qualify nor had any chance of ever repaying that loan.

FACT: HUD (Housing and Urban Development) under Andrew Cuomo, head of HUD) browbeat banks to make loans to folks who they knew couldn't pay them back.
FACT: Many lending institutions were sued or otherwise pressured by ACORN, forcing them to make loans to folks who didn't qualify nor had any chance of ever repaying that loan. IN FACT, BARACK OBAMA WAS INVOLVED IN AT LEAST ONE OF THESE LAWSUITS



FACT: Fannie Mae's sole purpose for being was to offer a Federal Guarantee of loans. So banks and other lending institutions didn't need to worry about thing. If a loan went bad, Fannie Mae was there to pick up the pieces (until there were too many pieces to pick up)

FACT: The Democrats stacked the operations of Fannie Mae with other Democrats who then cooked the books (FM had to pay MILLIONS in fines to the SEC over this) and took HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in bonuses and funneled MILLIONS in campaign contributions to members of Congress. Franklin Raines (part of the Obama Administration) personally took 90 million dollars despite Fannie Mae's fines and fraud.

FACT: Bill Clinton turned a blind eye to all of this during most of the 90's. In fact, he worsened the situation in 1995 by making the CRA even more lopsided and requiring even MORE bad loans. One thing he did was to force lending institutions to accept up to 31% of one's income for a mortgage whereas previously it was only 25%

FACT: The Democrats who run Fannie Mae took hundreds of millions in bonuses while Congressional Dems provided cover, including Charlie Rangel , Chris Dodd , Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

FACT: Democrat Chris Dodd was #1 recipient with Democrat Barack Obama being #2 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac

FACT: The Democrats blocked every attempt by Republicans to investigate Fannie Mae and its business practices. In fact, the Bush Administration made over 30 attempts over his two terms in office only to have the Democrats block every one through parliamentary procedures as the Republicans, while controlling both Houses, NEVER had a super majority so the Dems could block anything they pleased (case in point - judicial nominees)





http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print


Quote:
September 11, 2003
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
Note the date


Quote:
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.
http://www.bucksright.com/bush-propo...n-in-2003-1141


Quote:
A September 11, 2003 New York Times article shows that President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” His proposal: An agency within the Treasury Department to supervise mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fearing that mortgages would no longer be available to people who were unable to pay them back, Democrats eventually killed the proposal. The current meltdown in the mortgage industry is a direct result of giving mortgages to people who could not pay them back, a practice protected by Congressional Democrats.

Both entities were recently taken over by the government, a move that puts trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

But Democrats in Congress, also known as “the caucus perpetually on the wrong side of history,” were having none of this “responsibility” stuff.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

The proposal worked its way around Congress for a couple of years. Efforts at reform of the kind proposed by President Bush were shot down by Democrats each time.

In 2005, Republican Mike Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, brought up a reform bill (H.R. 1461), and Fannie and Freddie’s lobbyists set out to weaken it.

[...]

During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, [Democrat in bed with the mortgage industry Chris] Dodd — who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 — actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation.

According to OpenSecrets.org, between 1988 and 2008 Dodd received $133,900, Kerry $111,000, Clinton $75,550, and Obama — in only 143 days in the Senate — received a whopping $105,849 from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Pennsylvania Democrat representative Paul Kanjorksi, who also opposed new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, was given more than any other member of the House of Representatives. He was paid $65,500 by representatives of these entities.

And, in case you were wondering, John McCain co-sponsored a bill requiring greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac regulation in 2005. It was also blocked procedurally by Democrats.

The 2003 New York Times article was unearthed by a Free Republic poster.

UPDATE: 2004 video posted to YouTube shows Republicans arguing for, and Democrats arguing against, regulations that would have saved us from the current crisis.
http://www.bucksright.com/congressma...ge-crisis-1451


Quote:
Congressman Sorry Democrats Dropped Ball On Mortgage Crisis
Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:55 am Posted by Steven in Economy

After being featured on Hannity & Colmes in a damning 2004 video showing Democrats fighting tooth-and-nail against greater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, Democrat Congressman Artur Davis admits Democrats dropped the ball on reigning in the failed institutions and calls on fellow Democrats to do the same.

“Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues, I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit that when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. By the way, I wish my Republican colleagues would admit that they missed the early warning signs that Wall Street deregulation was overheating the securities market and promoting dangerously lax lending practices. When it comes to the debacle in our capital markets, there is much blame to go around for both sides.”

Along with President Clinton, I take issue with Davis’ contention that equal blame exists on both sides. President Bush requested greater oversight in 2003, Republicans are clearly seen in the video fighting for greater oversight in 2004, and John McCain led the charge for greater oversight in 2005. All efforts were rebuffed by Democrats, who demagogued the issue with racial politics that made reform impossible to accomplish. At least they tried. I see no evidence of any push toward greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac oversight since the short bus rolled onto Capitol Hill in January 2007.

That said, I appreciate Congressman Davis’ candor in admitting Democrats let their ideology get in the way of what was right for the country.

MORE RIGHT WING GARBAGE, I'm shocked

Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

Let's take a look at that timeline under President Bush directly from the mouths of our representatives in Congress, and the mortgage crisis through the government oversight of Freedie Mae and Freddie Mac.

September 1999

With pressure from the Clinton Administration, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on loans it would purchase from lenders, making it easier for banks to lend to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. Raines explained that "there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market," reported the New York Times.

With this action, Fannie Mae put itself at substantial risk in the event of an economic downturn. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," warned Peter Wallison. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The danger was known.


March 2000

Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.

Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."


June 2000

Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): "very few banks or S&Ls could, even in this day and age, even now, meet the stress-testing requirements which Fannie and Freddie are required to meet."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) regarding the Treasury Department line of credit: "It is really symbolic, it is obsolete, it has never been used." "Would you explain why it would be important to repeal something that seems to be of little use?"

Smith: "as long as the pipeline is there, it is like it is very expandable. . . . It is only $2 billion today. It could be $200 billion tomorrow."

Because of Democrat obfuscation, Smith's "tomorrow" arrived in 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship.


February 2003

OFHEO reports that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations . . . the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them," warning that unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market, according to a White House release.


June 2003

Freddie Mac reported it had understated its profits by $6.9 billion. OFHEO director Armando Falcon Jr. requested that the White House audit Fannie Mae.


July 2003

Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats.


September 2003

In an interview with Ron Insana for CNN Money, Rep. Baker warned, "I have concerns that if appropriate resources aren't allocated for internal risk management, the consequences will be far more severe than just a real estate slowdown. The losses would fall quickly through the capital these companies have and down to shareholders and taxpayers. These companies have some of the lowest capital margins of any financial institution in the nation, yet, at the same time, they are two of the largest. The concern is that if something doesn't work out the way they predict, the American taxpayer could be called on to pay off the debt in some sort of bailout."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "These two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis. . . . The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."


October 2003

Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.


November 2003

Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, "The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system," from a White House release.


February 2004

Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator," says a White House release.

OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign "by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up." Again, GSE pressure prevailed.


October 2004

In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.' I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn't have been a bonus that year."

"The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006," reports the Wall Street Journal.

Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios "poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs] . . . should one get into financial trouble." He added, "If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis . . . We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership."

Greenspan warned that if the GSEs "continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road . . . We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk."

Bloomberg writes, "If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then."



April 2007

In "A Nightmare Grows Darker," the New York Times writes that the "democratization of credit" is "turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers." The "newfangled mortgage loans" called "affordability loans" "represent 60 percent of foreclosures."


2007-2008

The housing bubble began to burst, bad mortgages began to default, and finally the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios were revealed to be what they were, in collapse. And the testimony is evident as to why. As Wallison noted, "Fannie and Freddie were, I would say, the poster children for corporate welfare."

Archived-Articles: Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened

Is There an Antidote to the Republican Amnesia?


Memory eventually fails us all, but apparently the decline strikes one party far more than the other.

In recent weeks, my friends across the aisle have expended a lot of breath proclaiming that the Democrats caused the present financial crisis by failing to pass legislation to regulate financial services companies in the years 1995 through 2006.

There is only small one problem with this story -- throughout this entire period the Republicans were in complete charge of the House and for the most critical years they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

In the House of Representatives, the majority party has almost unlimited power over the minority party. The majority party owns the committee chairmanships; it controls what bills come to a vote; and it is under no obligation to consider the ideas of the beleaguered minority. When the Republicans were in the majority they ruled with an iron first; it is no accident that Tom DeLay was known as "The Hammer."

That is why I find it particularly flattering the Republicans now claim that in the years 1995 to 2006 I personally possessed supernatural powers which enabled me to force mighty Republican leaders to do my bidding. Choose your comic book hero -- I was all of them.

I wish I had the power to force the Republican leadership to do my bidding! If I had had that power, I would have used it to block the impeachment of Bill Clinton, to stop the war in Iraq, to prevent large tax cuts for the extremely wealthy, and to stop government intervention into the private life of Terri Schiavo. Yet that power eluded me, and I was unable to stop those things.

According to the Republicans' misty memories of the period before 2007, I allegedly singlehandedly blocked their determined efforts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and my supposed intransigence literally caused the worldwide financial crisis.

Fortunately, we have tools to aid memory -- pencil and paper, word processing, transcripts, newspapers, and the Congressional record. And as described in the most reputable published sources, in 2005 I in fact worked together with my Republican colleague Michael Oxley, then Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, to write a bill to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We passed the bill out of committee with an overwhelming majority -- every Democrat voted in favor of the legislation. However, on the House floor the Republican leadership added a poison pill amendment, which would have prevented non-profit institutions with religious affiliations from receiving funds. I voted against the legislation in protest, though I continued to work with Mr. Oxley to encourage the Senate to pass a good bill. But these efforts were defeated because President Bush blocked further consideration of the legislation. In the words of Mr. Oxley, no flaming liberal, the Bush administration gave his efforts 'the one-finger salute.'

The Republicans can claim some supposed successes despite my awesome power. In 1999 they passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which overturned a Depression-era law preventing commercial banks from acting like investment banks. In 2000, they passed another bill which loosened regulation of derivative markets. I voted against these bills -- but to no avail.

Under Republican President George W. Bush, many federal agencies turned a blind eye to activities which would later precipitate the global financial meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission decided to allow the nation's largest financial institutions to "self-regulate;" the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan declined to use its power to regulate subprime mortgages; the Comptroller of the Currency decided to preempt state consumer laws on subprime mortgages.

Meanwhile, President Bush himself demanded that Fannie and Freddie increase the percentage of subprime loans they purchased, supposedly because of his belief in an "ownership society." Incidentally, increased lending to subprime borrowers would also fuel astronomical profits by the financial services industry. I publicly opposed giving mortgages to unqualified borrowers because I believed that some families are better off renting.

Yet somehow none of this was recorded in the Republican collective memory.

Forgotten too is the significant progress that was made after the 2006 elections, when the Republicans in Congress were repudiated by American voters.

Ironically, this is the period in which I and my Democratic colleagues actually did possess the magical power needed to make real change in Washington -- we became the majority party. In March 2007, just two months after I became the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee for the first time, I moved quickly to forge a bill which would regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill passed the House in May, with all 223 Democrats voting for it, and 103 Republicans voting against it. President Bush later signed that legislation into law.


Later in 2007, I introduced legislation to restrict subprime mortgages. The bill passed the Financial Services Committee and the House, but it did not pass the Senate, where because of the filibuster rule, the Republican minority actually does have the power to hobble the majority. The bill passed the full House with all 227 Democrats and 64 Republicans voting for it, and 127 Republicans voting against.


Ironically, those Republicans who now attack me most viciously and whose memories are the most impaired were among those who voted against both bills.

Rep. Barney Frank: Is There an Antidote to the Republican Amnesia?

 

[Dad2three]

The fact is if you look at all the indicators the day Newt Gingrich was elected speaker, virtually all the economic growth occurs after Republicans take control, as a matter of fact, all the increase in the stock market is after Republicans take control of Congress!

Go look it up!

Yes, because in right wing world EVERYTHING turns on a dime in an economy as large as the US economy is *shaking head*

Weird how well the GOP did with Bush in charge AND a GOP Congress right?

David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy.

The “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”

Cue the FoxNews denunciations.

David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan


David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy. | ThinkProgress



The Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts was a statement signed by roughly 450 economists, including ten of the twenty-four American Nobel Prize laureates alive at the time, in February 2003 who urged the U.S. President George W. Bush not to enact the 2003 tax cuts; seeking and sought to gather public support for the position. The statement was printed as a full-page ad in The New York Times and released to the public through the Economic Policy Institute. According to the statement, the 450 plus economists who signed the statement believe that the 2003 Bush tax cuts will increase inequality and the budget deficit, decreasing the ability of the U.S. government to fund essential services, while failing to produce economic growth.



In rebuttal, 250 plus economists who supported the tax plan wrote that the new plan would "create more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans."


WHICH GROUP WAS CORRECT? LOL


Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

More SPIN and LEFTIST OPINION! This shithead already posted EVERYONE had part of the blame, and now he's back peddling! Oh, the entertainment, and the display of OCD on Clinton's involvement is monumental!..... How many leftist scientists and government hacks say GW is man made???...(Obuma, send those guys there GRANT MONEY!!!).ROTFLMFAO!!!!

Got it,. You can't critically think OR be honest


The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets OCT 2008