‘Intelligent people’ should learn the truth
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Joan Howell
Published: October 8, 2008
This is in response to Ellen Guillen and her letter “Intelligent people for Obama and Biden.”
This whole disaster began in the ‘70s. The person who wrote this letter is either too young to remember, or too old to keep their mind straight. In the ‘70s, under President Carter, it started as
the”Community Reinvestment Act,” a plan to give lower income people the chance to take part in the American Dream. It was continued and even strengthened by Clinton and even Bush.
Those in Congress like Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Chris Dodd told President Bush even as late as July 2008 that the major players in this, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were just fine, not in
trouble, and we were even asked by Waters: “Why fix something that aint broke?” I know you Democrats love to hate Bush, but he has been sounding the alarm about this disaster for years and
Congress REFUSED TO ACT.
Maybe you should learn history a little more before you begin to spew your hatred.
You can go to the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 and learn the truth that in 2005 John McCain co-sponsored the bill. He said the following:
“I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. 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.”
Maybe if ‘Intelligent people” like you would stop listening to the political hacks that have so much to gain from our economy going down the tubes, you might see that not everything they tell you is fact
and that they are not as “intelligent” as you might think.
JOAN HOWELL
Woodbridge
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( urf8 ) on October 11, 2008 at 10:21 pm
If only intelligent and educated people voted, the Republican Party would cease to exist!
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Posted by ( rafaelva ) on October 10, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I have to correct a few things that I said, It, the ACT created a new agency, not GSE.
It did not die in committee, the line
“ordered to be reported with amendment favorably” means, that the Committee ordered the bill to be reported back to the Senate, with amendment, favorably. Favorably means that the committee in general had a favorable opinion of the Bill.
Regardless, the Act did not get reintroduced to the Senate, and was allowed to die. It was reintroduced in the 110th Congress, and is still floating around. In the meantime, Speaker Pelosi introduced a bill into the House in early 2007, which incorporated the regulatory amendments of the ACT, did form a new regulatory agency, however, did not strip regulatory power away from Treasury, and HUD. It has been called too little too late.
In a general reading of the ACT, I can’t find where the new Agency could have been effective even if it had passed in late 2005, most of the damage had already been done, particularly Fannie’s cooking the books to look good, so the Chairman could get his parachute.
Oh! the Act did include a Golden Parachute clause in it, which was good,
and appears to have been the model for the one in the 700B Bailout bill.
As far as who let it, or caused it to fail, there is no way to assess that as far as I could find. The only thing I could see was the issue became public as part of the McCain Campaign.
A member of the financial advisory staff of his campaign wrote the paper putting McCain at the forefront of the push for passage. With the exception of two speeches, there doesn’t really seem to be much said until recently.
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Posted by ( Godsaveus ) on October 10, 2008 at 10:39 am
rafaelva
It was never allowed to be brought to the floor for a vote because Schumer and Dodd, primarily, are on record as having said Fannie and Freddie are just fine. Since I am going by the clips of the floor comments and articles that were written at the time quoting the Republican’s begging Dodd to allow it on the floor for a vote, I presume there was a filibuster by the Dems. It came up again in 2006, but at that point the Dems were in control of both Houses of Congress.
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Posted by ( rafaelva ) on October 09, 2008 at 5:25 pm
That’s pretty interesting, the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 died an unattended death in Senate Committee.
The Senate Committee had a 2 vote republican majority, they if they approved of the measure had the votes to report it to the Senate. They did not, they let it sit until the adjornment of the 109th Congress.
What did the ACT do, well it was definately regulatory reform, but it’s actual mission was to form a new GSE,
and independant Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Corporaton, and it took all regulatory authority away from federal agencies, and gave it to the new corporation.
This was one of the things McCain was talking about when he talked about doing away with the existing regulatory agencies, and creating a new one with newer streamlined authority.
The idea that the then ranking minority member for the House Banking Committee might have be able to influence the Bill is a little offbeat.
Not being a senator kinda hindered him.
Of course the Bill never being reported back to the floor of the Senate might have had some influence on it never appearing in the House.
GSU: In a sense this was a recommitt, but it was in the Senate, so it’s designed to amend a piece of legislation, the Act was reported back to Committee with instructions to amend it to establish preferences. Apparently the Republican Chair decided not to, and technically killed the bill.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on October 09, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Godsaveus,
If you bother reading what I wrote, you’d see that I was living in Mississippi. The governor was Haley Barbour, Republican, former lobbyst for the tobacco industry, former head of the RNC.
But, you are correct in stating that I don’t know what a real governor should have done.
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Posted by ( kgotthardt ) on October 09, 2008 at 3:32 pm
—-The person who wrote this letter is either too young to remember, or too old to keep their mind straight.—-
WOW. Talk about dismissing entire generations! So how old does that make YOU?
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Posted by ( jVA ) on October 09, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Ok, so Democratic House member, Barney Frank, was completely wrong on the position of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
This letter writer is arguing that President Bush warned about the financial crisis and the congress did nothing about it. So I ask again:
Didn’t Republicans control congress for nearly six of the past eight years?
What stopped the Republican controlled congress from acting? Barney Frank???
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Posted by ( Godsaveus ) on October 09, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Didn’t Republicans control congress for six of those eight years?
Five years ago, there was one of those rare moments in Washington when the branches and personalities of government—in this case, the Bush administration—are less interested in protecting or expanding their turf than in fixing a looming catastrophe. What was Frank’s response to the proposal?
“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.“
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Posted by ( jVA ) on October 09, 2008 at 2:13 pm
“I know you Democrats love to hate Bush, but he has been sounding the alarm about this disaster for years and
Congress REFUSED TO ACT. “
Didn’t Republicans control congress for six of those eight years?
And does anybody else have a vivid recollection of Bush sounding any alarms on the pending economic disaster? I’ve watched every State of the Union since 2000. I just can’t recall Bush ever jumping up and down warning us the economy was about to tank.
In fact, here is his Sec. of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, April 20, 2007:
“I don’t see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained.“
Good grief. How about Bush himself in August? Two months ago:
“The American economy is the envy of the world, and we need to keep it that way,“ Bush said, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong. ... Job creation is strong. Real after-tax wages are on the rise. Inflation is low.“
Anybody really think the American economy is the envy of the world right now? Maybe if you live in Guatemala.
Honestly, if you really feel the Republicans can fix this mess, then go for it. I just don’t see any indication during the past eight years that they’ve done anything good for the economy.
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Posted by ( Godsaveus ) on October 09, 2008 at 1:26 pm
“As you were not living on the Gulf Coast during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina, you have no idea what happened. I was living there, in Mississippi, and I do know what happened”.
You where living there and your Governor was Kathleen Blanco.
Do you know what shoud do a Governor?
She was a desaster handling Katrina. Shame on her.
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