Posted by
Tomás Aquinas on Monday, September 29, 2008 11:05:03 PM
The bailout bill failed to pass the House today. Minority leaders
attribute the failure in large measure to Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi's ill-advised attack on the Bush administration.
"This
is not a partisan crisis, this is an economic crisis," said Deputy
Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, who said that 94 Democrats also refused
to go along with the bill. He described the vote as the result of
"Speaker Pelosi's failure to listen and failure to lead."
House Republican Conference Chairman, Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, said
"he
was disappointed that the process that yielded a bipartisan approach
took a very marked, partisan tone at the end of the debate."
Here is what Pelosi said:
"When
was the last time someone asked you for $700 billion?" Pelosi asked in
a floor speech shortly before the vote. "It is a number that is
staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration's
failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on
an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision and no
discipline in the system." Without commenting on her criticism or the
GOP response, Pelosi said that Republicans have not received the
message from the White House that bipartisanship was needed.
Republicans
have not received the message? I have always thought Pelosi was pretty
much disconnected from reality, but those comments cinch it solidly.
Pelosi
would have us all ignore the Democrats' role in all of this, beginning
as far back as the Carter administration and the Community Reinvestment
Act, which was 'supercharged' in 1996 by Bill Clinton's administration.
That is the act that required banks to make loans, mortgages, to people
who under any rational circumstances would never qualify for those
loans.
The major newspapers, such as the New York Times, the
Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, are full of warnings over
the last two decades about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other mortgage
and loan institutions. Little if any of those warnings have to do with
the Republicans.
For example:
On September 30, 1999, this appeared in the New York Times:
"Fannie
Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under
increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage
loans among low and moderate income people . . . ''Fannie Mae has
expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by
reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie
Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet 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.'' Fannie Mae is taking
on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during
flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run
into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue
similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. ''From
the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift
industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow
at the American Enterprise Institute. ''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.''
and on May 25, 2001 from the New York Times:
"Traditional
power centers in Washington, like organized labor and the
government-sponsored enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), will now
have important political allies back in positions of leadership in the
Senate after coming under heavy assault by the Republicans.", in
response to the Democrats taking over those leadership position.
and from the Los Angeles Times in May, 1999:
"Under
Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into
enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute
meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their
low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear
message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending
laws. The bottom line: Between 1993 and 1997, home loans grew by 72% to
blacks and by 45% to Latinos, far faster than the total growth rate.
Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new
initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered
corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance
system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and
bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend
more. In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their
purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers.
Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been
aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed
extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a
home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve
these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more
loans with very low down payments–or with mortgage payments that
represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer’s income. That’s made
banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have
rejected."
And Barney Frank, that fellow who has been in it up to his ears for years had this to say:
"Because somebody hurt their feelings they decide to punish the country. ... I mean, that's hardly plausible" said Frank.
It is obviously highly plausible, because that is exactly what we got from Pelosi today.
Pelosi is joined in her complete disregard of fact by our own Senator Ken Salazar, who last week said:
"Where
was Hank Paulson for the past year when middle-America has been going
through a home foreclosure crisis? Where was President Bush?" Ken
Salazar asked Wednesday. "Back then, they were saying all the economy's
fundamentals were strong. Were they distorting the reality for the
public or were they just wrong? Now they want more money than we've
spent on the entire war in Iraq," the senator said.
I
know where Paulson and Bush were, Senator. I also know where the
Democrats have been. Or at least where their hands have been. They have
been deep in my pockets. They want to go even deeper.
Salazar
and Frank and Pelosi and the rest of those...Democrats...should be
deeply ashamed of themselves for their pathetic partisanship,
obfuscation of fact, and outright lies. At this point, I would prefer
to see Wall Street go belly up rather than submit to such blatant
political whoring. The future of the nation; the future of our children
and grandchildren is clearly at stake...and all these
...Democrats...can do is posture, pander, lie, obfuscate, and
demonstrate to the nation that they think we are cowpie stupid.
A pox on them all.
Look at this:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Democrats will take a look at what to do next. "We
did our part," said Hoyer of Maryland. "As I said on the floor, this is
a bipartisan responsibility and we think (Democrats) met our
responsibility." Hoyer, you
fool. You did nothing to meet any responsibility in any sense of the
word. What you did was take this crisis and try to turn it to your own
selfish, miserable purposes.
The worst of it was Pelosi:
Opponents
said part of the reason for the opposition from Republicans was what
they termed a partisan speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said one
GOP source. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt said he thinks Republicans
could have provided a dozen more votes had Pelosi not given her speech.
Pelosi
had said that Congress needed to pass the bill, even though it was an
outgrowth of the "failed economic policies" of the last eight years. "When
was the last time someone asked you for $700 billion?" she asked. "It
is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush
administration's failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary
recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no
supervision, and no discipline in the system."
Further,
Pelosi's legislation has within it allocations for such as ACORN, FORD,
and other of those extortionist leftist 'housing advocacy' groups who
have been deeply entwined with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A good deal
of the problem of making poorly thought out loans to people who can't
pay them back is attributable to lobbying from those groups. She wants
to keep them in play. They ought to be ridden out of town on a rail.
Come to think on it, so should Pelosi, Reid, Frank, et al.
How
can such a blindly oblivious fool be tolerated as the Speaker of the
House? Does that woman have two brain cells that actually connect?
OK,
so this is a rant. Yes, I freely confess that. I've already covered the
background on why these people are such oxygen thieves. Here it is
again:
More obfuscatory nonsense from the Democrats
The Barney Frank Snow Job
The Chieftain figures it out
Obama laments debt but promises billions for the UN
The continuing saga of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae