Democrats Killed Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Fix in 2005 »
Posted By FTD2008 1 year, 10 months ago in NewsWe could have avoided the current financial mess we' re in, but certain key Democrats (including all-time Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac political contribution leaders Chris Dodd) killed it . ...in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``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,’’ he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.’’
What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets. . . .
Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.
But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.
Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.
Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.
There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.
The connections between Demcorats and the housing mess are significant, and being overlooked.
Former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines (who left the company after using accounting voodoo to line his pockets with undeserved bonuses) worked for the Clinton administration. He’s also advised the Obama campaign.
The majority of the political money Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have given to politicians has gone to Democrats, with Senators Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and John Kerry topping the list.
It has been liberals, and not conservatives, who have in the past demanded that mortgage lenders be forced to loan to subprime borrowers. Jimmy Carter signed the Community Redevelopment Act into law, and Bill Clinton amplified that legislation creating the market for subprime loans that is causing all of these problems now.
If government, at the behest of liberals, had kept their noses out of the mortgage industry from the start these companies that are suffering now would have long since failed due to poor businesses practices, and we wouldn’t be facing the problems we’re facing now.
Read Full Story at sayanythingblog.com »
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FTD20081 year, 10 months ago
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They killed it by postponing it.... they never let it come to a real vote but if you look at all of the co-sponsors of the bill they are all Republicans.... thats how they kill stuff they throw it into a comittee and never let it get voted upon
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DenCuddy1 year, 10 months ago
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As Bush stated in 2002: One of the things that we've got to do is to address problems straight on and deal with them in a way that helps us meet goals. And so I want to talk about a couple of goals and -- one goal and a problem.
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The goal is, everybody who wants to own a home has got a shot at doing so. The problem is we have what we call a homeownership gap in America. Three-quarters of Anglos own their homes, and yet less than 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanics own homes. That ownership gap signals that something might be wrong in the land of plenty. And we need to do something about it.
We are here in Washington, D.C. to address problems. So I've set this goal for the country. We want 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010 -- million more minority homeowners by 2010. (Applause.) Five-and-a-half million families by 2010 will own a home. That is our goal. It is a realistic goal. But it's going to mean we're going to have to work hard to achieve the goal, all of us. And by all of us, I mean not only the federal government, but the private sector, as well.
link:http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/... -
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FTD20081 year, 10 months ago
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read the senate records http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109...
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DumbandDumber1 year, 10 months ago
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It is amazing that something Jimmy Carter supposedly did more than 30 years ago has led us to where we are. The fact is that the deregulation of the banking industry that occurred at the end of Clinton's presidency in 1999 and the additional deregulation in the Bush administration is what caused this. Guess who led the second set of deregulation - yep John McCain's financial advisor - Phil Graham - who was a senator at the time. Phil is also the one that a few months ago said -Americans are just a bunch of whiners about these economic concerns......
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Get real man. This is too serious an issue to dumb down the discussion.... -
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robport1 year, 10 months ago
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It takes 60 votes to get any bit of proposed legislation through the Senate. Even with a majority, Republicans didn't have a 60 vote majority. They needed Dems on board to reform Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and the Dems wouldn't budget.
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