BeAChooser
Banned
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 11,716
Obama asked in the debate, "how did we get into this situation in the first place?" Good question. Who really is responsible for getting us in this mortgage mess? Republicans or Democrats? McCain or Obama?
Obama claimed in the debate, as he did in his economics speech, that
He wants voters to believe, as he said in his economics speech, that Bush, McCain and the Republicans did nothing while he and the democrats tried to address the problem. But Obama is a liar. Here is the cold, hard truth. Obama, the democrats and their constituents are the reason we now face this crisis.
The story begins with Jimmy Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act ) which went after the practice of redlining and put pressure on banks to make home loans in "low- and moderate-income neighborhoods." Then things simmered until the late 1980s and early 1990's, when Obama entered the picture. As a "community organizer", he helped the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) push for such things as an expansion of the scope of the CRA on the grounds of racial inequality. Everything to them/him was about race and fairness.
Then things really took off when, during the Clinton administration (which did indeed expand CRA in 1995), a 1993 study by liberals at the Boston Fed made the claim that minority mortgage applications were rejected at a higher rate because of racism. But was racism the real reason?
The answer is no, as an article in Forbes that same year proved: http://www.vdare.com/pb/050105_hiddenclue.htm . In fact, the Boston Fed senior vice president and research director had to admit to Forbes that they made a serious error in interpreting the data and that actually there was "no evidence" to support the racism charge. That didn't keep them from saying they still "believed" it to be true.
The fact that Forbes completely debunked the Boston Fed's assertion didn't stop Obama and his fellow civil rights lawyers from claiming in 1995, in a court case known as Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank, that Citibank was making too few loans to black applicants due to racism. They cited the 1993 study as proof.
The liberal court lapped it up. Obama and his civil rights friends won the case, forcing banks to make loans that simply weren't financially sound. And once Obama helped open the flood gates, it was only a matter of time before the waters rose. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/08/trillion-here-trillion-there-pretty.html cites a slew of articles that show how it all snowballed. By 1999, news like the following was appearing in the press.
And as that link shows, the warnings of problems ahead were there well before Bush ever took office ... warnings that would be consistently ignored by democrats for most of the next decade.
Keep in mind that during that time democrats kept assuring us that all was well. And getting big campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie.
And what were those organizations doing to heed the warnings? Nothing. No, instead, they were making matters worse. And who led that effort? Well, a democrat, of course ... Clinton's ex-budget director Franklin Raines who became Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae. Here's an excerpt from a year 2000 article cited at the above link:
Maybe Raines should have said "undeserved" populations. That would have been more accurate and to the point. And I hoped you all noticed the fact that Raines, who is now a big time Obama supporter and an advisor to Obama (although Obama in his usual pattern now denies that), quoted W.E.B. Du Bois, a communist, in that article.
Raines was the gift who kept giving ...
So you see, democrats clearly led the way towards this financial disaster.
And what ever happened to Raines before he became an Obama supporter?
In 2004, after a tip from a whistle blower, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight issued a report finding that Fannie Mae (under Raines) had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced. The accounting was designed so that Fannie could meet profit targets to maximize bonus payments to company executives ... like Clinton's deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick (who all told took home about $26 million) and ... you guessed it ... Franklin Raines (who took home $50 million). As a result of the investigations, Raines was forced out of Fannie Mae and although he claimed no wrong doing, agreed to settle the suit with the federal government and pay back a few million of what he stole.
And despite that sorbid history, Obama is apparently taking advice from Raines. An April story in The Washington Post (not exactly a right-wing paper) said Raines has "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." Reporter Anita Huslin says Raines told her that during an in-person interview. So you see, Obama is STUCK ON STUPID.
Next we have Obama's claim that 2 years ago he provided warning and authored legislation to address the mortgage issue. Obama is being deceptive again.
First, it wasn't 2 years ago that he introduced his bill on mortgages. He claimed in his economics speech it was in February 2006 but I proved (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1222 ) it was actually April 2007 when he did that. And would his legislation have addressed the current problem? No. Here is the description of the bill S.1222 Title: A bill to stop mortgage transactions which operate to promote fraud, risk, abuse and under-development:
Reading the above, it is evident that law wouldn't have done anything to stop the current sub-prime crisis because it wouldn't have prevented foolish people from taking out loans they couldn't pay back. It wouldn't have changed the democrat driven practice of the government forcing lenders to make such loans. These people weren't defrauded by lenders. What they did is get greedy and sign up for loans with terms they eventually couldn't meet just because they wanted outrageously low interest rates ... something for nothing. And it wouldn't have done anything to make sure the lending institutions are financially sound.
Next we have his assertion that Bush, McCain and Republicans are responsible for the mess because, unlike him, they did nothing to prevent it. Here, Obama is again proven a LIAR.
As I've already pointed on this forum, in 2003, President Bush warned that Fannie and Freddie where facing a crisis and proposed a new agency to oversee regulatory reforms of them. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print The new agency would have had the authority, that still rests with Congress today, to set one of the two capital reserve requirements for the companies. And it would have determined whether the two were adequately managing the risks of their portfolios. But guess who was against it? Democrats, of course.
Now in 2005, Republicans introduced a bill that McCain co-sponsored which would have set up an agency like Bush proposed ... the "Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005". Had it passed (it didn't because democrats and a few RINOs opposed it), it would have (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190&tab=summary ) amended "the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which" would "have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board." It would have set "forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting." Read that, and you'll see it would have directly addressed the problem.
And unlike Obama, McCain actually did issue a warning. Here is a speech that McCain gave the Senate in 2006 in support of the above bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/rec...x002Fmcrmx002Fms20060525-16.xmlElementm0m0m0m . In it he warned "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole." What prescience he had.
But again, democrats prevented that bill from passing. Democrat after democrat got up and spoke, claiming no reform was needed and that all was well. Here are their words. Representative Barney Frank said "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." Representative Mel Watt said "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." Senator Charles Schumer said "I think Fannie and Freddie over the years have done an incredibly good job ... snip ... if you look over the last 20 or whatever years, they've done a very, very good job." And many other democrats joined them in denial.
And guess what? In 2007, this bill was reintroduced. And what happened? Again, nothing. The now democrat led banking committee chaired by Chris Dodd (who was a big recipient of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions) has yet to even review it. The problem was identified but again democrats prevented a solution.
So there is no question that Obama and the democrats are the ones who got us where we are today ... in a financial mess. And they are the reason there is still no bailout bill this evening. Because instead of working to solve the problem they decided to play politics. Which is why Obama refused when McCain suggested they put the campaigns on pause and solve this problem. Which is why Obama didn't even make any calls to try and get the bailout legislation passed (McCain did and the number of republicans who voted for it went up dramatically over the weekend). Which is why democrats tried to slip in the laundering of bailout money through corrupt, partisan organizations like ACORN (which has ties to Obama). Which is why Nancy Pelosi before the vote today gave a highly partisan, dishonest and insulting speech. As in most matters, it is clear that democrats have decided to put Party Over Country. They are the reason the markets crashed yesterday. And there is no question that Obama has outright LIED in speeches and in the debate when he claims that McCain/Bush had done nothing about problems in the mortgage industry and that he and his party did. And I see no attempt by the Obama supporters on this forum to challenge these facts with anymore than hand waving, more dishonesty and distortions. Should that surprise any of us? What is surprising is all the people going to vote for him knowing this.
Obama claimed in the debate, as he did in his economics speech, that
He wants voters to believe, as he said in his economics speech, that Bush, McCain and the Republicans did nothing while he and the democrats tried to address the problem. But Obama is a liar. Here is the cold, hard truth. Obama, the democrats and their constituents are the reason we now face this crisis.
The story begins with Jimmy Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act ) which went after the practice of redlining and put pressure on banks to make home loans in "low- and moderate-income neighborhoods." Then things simmered until the late 1980s and early 1990's, when Obama entered the picture. As a "community organizer", he helped the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) push for such things as an expansion of the scope of the CRA on the grounds of racial inequality. Everything to them/him was about race and fairness.
Then things really took off when, during the Clinton administration (which did indeed expand CRA in 1995), a 1993 study by liberals at the Boston Fed made the claim that minority mortgage applications were rejected at a higher rate because of racism. But was racism the real reason?
The answer is no, as an article in Forbes that same year proved: http://www.vdare.com/pb/050105_hiddenclue.htm . In fact, the Boston Fed senior vice president and research director had to admit to Forbes that they made a serious error in interpreting the data and that actually there was "no evidence" to support the racism charge. That didn't keep them from saying they still "believed" it to be true.
The fact that Forbes completely debunked the Boston Fed's assertion didn't stop Obama and his fellow civil rights lawyers from claiming in 1995, in a court case known as Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank, that Citibank was making too few loans to black applicants due to racism. They cited the 1993 study as proof.
The liberal court lapped it up. Obama and his civil rights friends won the case, forcing banks to make loans that simply weren't financially sound. And once Obama helped open the flood gates, it was only a matter of time before the waters rose. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/08/trillion-here-trillion-there-pretty.html cites a slew of articles that show how it all snowballed. By 1999, news like the following was appearing in the press.
And as that link shows, the warnings of problems ahead were there well before Bush ever took office ... warnings that would be consistently ignored by democrats for most of the next decade.
Keep in mind that during that time democrats kept assuring us that all was well. And getting big campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie.
And what were those organizations doing to heed the warnings? Nothing. No, instead, they were making matters worse. And who led that effort? Well, a democrat, of course ... Clinton's ex-budget director Franklin Raines who became Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae. Here's an excerpt from a year 2000 article cited at the above link:
Maybe Raines should have said "undeserved" populations. That would have been more accurate and to the point. And I hoped you all noticed the fact that Raines, who is now a big time Obama supporter and an advisor to Obama (although Obama in his usual pattern now denies that), quoted W.E.B. Du Bois, a communist, in that article.
Raines was the gift who kept giving ...
So you see, democrats clearly led the way towards this financial disaster.
And what ever happened to Raines before he became an Obama supporter?
In 2004, after a tip from a whistle blower, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight issued a report finding that Fannie Mae (under Raines) had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced. The accounting was designed so that Fannie could meet profit targets to maximize bonus payments to company executives ... like Clinton's deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick (who all told took home about $26 million) and ... you guessed it ... Franklin Raines (who took home $50 million). As a result of the investigations, Raines was forced out of Fannie Mae and although he claimed no wrong doing, agreed to settle the suit with the federal government and pay back a few million of what he stole.
And despite that sorbid history, Obama is apparently taking advice from Raines. An April story in The Washington Post (not exactly a right-wing paper) said Raines has "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." Reporter Anita Huslin says Raines told her that during an in-person interview. So you see, Obama is STUCK ON STUPID.
Next we have Obama's claim that 2 years ago he provided warning and authored legislation to address the mortgage issue. Obama is being deceptive again.
First, it wasn't 2 years ago that he introduced his bill on mortgages. He claimed in his economics speech it was in February 2006 but I proved (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1222 ) it was actually April 2007 when he did that. And would his legislation have addressed the current problem? No. Here is the description of the bill S.1222 Title: A bill to stop mortgage transactions which operate to promote fraud, risk, abuse and under-development:
Reading the above, it is evident that law wouldn't have done anything to stop the current sub-prime crisis because it wouldn't have prevented foolish people from taking out loans they couldn't pay back. It wouldn't have changed the democrat driven practice of the government forcing lenders to make such loans. These people weren't defrauded by lenders. What they did is get greedy and sign up for loans with terms they eventually couldn't meet just because they wanted outrageously low interest rates ... something for nothing. And it wouldn't have done anything to make sure the lending institutions are financially sound.
Next we have his assertion that Bush, McCain and Republicans are responsible for the mess because, unlike him, they did nothing to prevent it. Here, Obama is again proven a LIAR.
As I've already pointed on this forum, in 2003, President Bush warned that Fannie and Freddie where facing a crisis and proposed a new agency to oversee regulatory reforms of them. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print The new agency would have had the authority, that still rests with Congress today, to set one of the two capital reserve requirements for the companies. And it would have determined whether the two were adequately managing the risks of their portfolios. But guess who was against it? Democrats, of course.
Now in 2005, Republicans introduced a bill that McCain co-sponsored which would have set up an agency like Bush proposed ... the "Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005". Had it passed (it didn't because democrats and a few RINOs opposed it), it would have (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190&tab=summary ) amended "the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which" would "have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board." It would have set "forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting." Read that, and you'll see it would have directly addressed the problem.
And unlike Obama, McCain actually did issue a warning. Here is a speech that McCain gave the Senate in 2006 in support of the above bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/rec...x002Fmcrmx002Fms20060525-16.xmlElementm0m0m0m . In it he warned "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole." What prescience he had.
But again, democrats prevented that bill from passing. Democrat after democrat got up and spoke, claiming no reform was needed and that all was well. Here are their words. Representative Barney Frank said "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." Representative Mel Watt said "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." Senator Charles Schumer said "I think Fannie and Freddie over the years have done an incredibly good job ... snip ... if you look over the last 20 or whatever years, they've done a very, very good job." And many other democrats joined them in denial.
And guess what? In 2007, this bill was reintroduced. And what happened? Again, nothing. The now democrat led banking committee chaired by Chris Dodd (who was a big recipient of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions) has yet to even review it. The problem was identified but again democrats prevented a solution.
So there is no question that Obama and the democrats are the ones who got us where we are today ... in a financial mess. And they are the reason there is still no bailout bill this evening. Because instead of working to solve the problem they decided to play politics. Which is why Obama refused when McCain suggested they put the campaigns on pause and solve this problem. Which is why Obama didn't even make any calls to try and get the bailout legislation passed (McCain did and the number of republicans who voted for it went up dramatically over the weekend). Which is why democrats tried to slip in the laundering of bailout money through corrupt, partisan organizations like ACORN (which has ties to Obama). Which is why Nancy Pelosi before the vote today gave a highly partisan, dishonest and insulting speech. As in most matters, it is clear that democrats have decided to put Party Over Country. They are the reason the markets crashed yesterday. And there is no question that Obama has outright LIED in speeches and in the debate when he claims that McCain/Bush had done nothing about problems in the mortgage industry and that he and his party did. And I see no attempt by the Obama supporters on this forum to challenge these facts with anymore than hand waving, more dishonesty and distortions. Should that surprise any of us? What is surprising is all the people going to vote for him knowing this.
