But we were discriminating against the poor!
Oh No! We can’t have that!
Everyone must be equal!
Nor has it been explained why the two mortgage giants at the heart of the housing crisis were excluded. A little research, however, provides answers. Many of the Senate and House conferees who assembled the final overhaul bill are among the biggest recipients of cash from Fannie and Freddie, which over the years have been plagued by Democrat cronyism and corruption.
Some of the Hill’s biggest protectors of the toxic twins and their market-distorting “affordable housing” mission landed key positions as conferees on the panel that wrote the final draft of the bank reform legislation. For example, conference committee leaders Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., respectively raked in more than $133,000 and $40,000 in donations from Fannie and Freddie, Federal Election Commission records show.
The two lawmakers, in turn, have been the congressional chartered companies’ staunchest defenders. Leading up to the housing meltdown, Dodd insisted time and again — despite growing evidence to the contrary — that Fannie and Freddie were “fundamentally strong” and “in good shape.”
Frank maintained that “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,” Frank griped, “the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
To satisfy such politically mandated lending goals, Washington-based Fannie and Freddie loaded up on subprime and other high-risk home loans. Their exposure was greater than all the major Wall Street players combined. And now they’re insolvent, with taxpayers potentially on the hook for as much as $1 trillion.
Already Fannie and Freddie’s $160 billion government bailout has topped that spent on AIG, Citigroup and other Democrat poster boys of the crisis, making their rescue the mother of all bailouts.
We can’t think of two entities more deserving of overhaul. Yet the Dodd-Frank Act doesn’t even try to reform them. This means nothing will change except the size of government’s hand in the economy. By not addressing Fannie and Freddie, economist Brian Wesbury noted “the government is taking no blame for the subprime crisis and is demanding more power over the U.S. financial system.”
Several other conferees instrumental in keeping Fannie and Freddie exempt from the new financial rules also show up among the top beneficiaries of Fannie and Freddie campaign cash (see table).
President Obama and top aide Rahm Emanuel also ranked among top recipients of Fannie and Freddie gifts when they were in Congress. From the White House, they lobbied Congress for a financial overhaul and got 90% of what they asked — including a pass for Fannie and Freddie, where Emanuel once served as director.
Their private piggy bank for “social justice” — which they used to provide high-risk loans that otherwise were out of reach for constituents — remains safe from promised “sweeping reform.”
In the ultimate insult, the two lawmakers most deserving of blame for the financial crisis carry the name of the legislation that supposedly will deliver us from financial crisis. The villains are, according to the media, the white knights riding in to save us from the havoc they caused. A more sinister script could not have been written. (IBD)
Unless you’re an elitist Democrat who has complete contempt for “the people” and are only out there to push your agenda and nothing else.
But don’t worry, we’re from the government and we are here to help you!!
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE: A PREVIEW
Anyone wanting a preview of Obama-Care need just focus on Massachusetts, the state that provided the blueprint for Obama’s plan. It makes a great case for making haste in repealing ObamaCare.
In Massachusetts, health care prices are out of control, emergency rooms are overcrowded, the government is at war with itself and private insurers are running in the red, refusing to enter critical markets on the government’s unrealistic terms.
The party line now is that the Bay State’s reform was not about cost control but rather expanding access to care. The program’s backers claim that the price spiral they find themselves in was expected, anticipated, even if they didn’t actually have a plan for it.
That’s a revisionist’s tale. In early 2006, the plan’s backers — led by then Republican Gov. Mitt Romney — adamantly asserted that his plan would in fact control costs, provide universal coverage and improve the quality of care. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because Obama’s team borrowed the marketing scripts.)
Disinterested outsiders predicted that both prices and total costs would most likely increase under the government-dominated system, since massive new demand, reimbursed at the lowest prices, would be forced on a fixed supply. They were shouted down by insiders vested in getting the reform passed.
Guess who was right?
Three years prior to reform, insurance premiums for employers were increasing 3.7% more slowly in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country. Today, the opposite is true. Prices in Massachusetts are increasing 5.7% more than in other states. In Boston, prices for employer-provided family plans are increasing 8.2% faster than in other large metropolitan areas.
“Because the plan’s main components are the same as those of the new health reform law,” the study’s authors note, “the effects of the plan provide a window onto the country’s future.”
But it’s “fair”.
******
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION & BORDER SECURITY
While President Obama was meeting at the White House with The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other Hispanic activists, he sent a Power Point presentation that said virtually nothing to Gov. Brewer.
Now he’s going to make a Campaign Speech tonight on it.
I know I’m excited!
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama hopes to rally new momentum behind the push for an immigration overhaul by explaining why he thinks a comprehensive approach is the only way to fix what he and others say is a system badly in need of repair.
(aka Sen. Jon Kyl’s “hostage” comment) Do it my way, that benefits me or not at all.
Obama was laying out his rationale in a {Campaign} speech Thursday, his first as president on the issue.
Obama wasn’t expected to announce any new proposals or policy changes. But feeling pressure from a range of supporters, he was aiming to jump-start the effort he had promised to make a priority in his first year and which advocates had hoped would be completed by now.
aka “Amnesty”.
The speech follows up on back-to-back meetings Obama had with advocates and lawmakers at the White House this week.
Gov. Brewer got 20 minutes crammed into the schedule at the last minute and then a Power Point presentation nearly a month later.
Obama has said a comprehensive solution means “accountability for everybody” — from the U.S. government meeting its obligation to secure the border, to businesses facing the consequences of knowingly employing illegal immigrants, to those who enter the country illegally owning up to their actions before they can begin the process of becoming citizens.
Has anyone told Labor Secretary Hilda Solis who a week ago put out a PSA saying if your Illegal and being treated or paid unfairly to giver her a call and The US Dept. of Labor would help you out??
Recent developments on immigration influenced his decision to give a speech, White House officials say, most notably Arizona’s enactment of a tough anti-immigrant law and protests across the country against it.
“He thought this was a good time to talk plainly with the American people about his views on immigration,” spokesman Bill Burton said.
Talk Plainly, Obama? Now that’s a novel idea.
Is he even capable of that?
NO.
Oh, and there’s that pesky LAWSUIT against SB1070. You know the one where we are “racists” and “misguided”.
So this is a campaign ploy.
As everything else is.
He looks tough.
He panders to his base.
The Ministry of Truth slobber all over him.
Liberal go all mushy.
Then nothing happens.
But it looks good.
And he wants “to do something”. Or at least look and sound like it.
Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing! (Richard III)
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