The Democrats' Fannie Is Showing
Posted 07:00 PM ET
investors.com
Irresponsibility: After the global financial crisis, no politician would dare chide another for too much "safety and soundness." But in 2004, 76 Democrats actually asked President Bush not to manage Fannie Mae responsibly.
There are smoking guns and then there are smoking bazookas. The June 28, 2004, letter from Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and dozens of other House Democrats to President Bush, posted by Moe Lane on Redstate.com last week, forever squashes Democratic claims about the mortgage crisis not being their fault.
"We urge you to reconsider your administration's criticisms of the housing-related government sponsored enterprises (the 'GSEs') and instead work with Congress to strengthen the mission and oversight of the GSEs," states the missive of nearly a page and a half, signed by a rogues' gallery of 76 House Democrats.
They include not only Frank, current chairman of the House Banking Committee; but Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., now being probed for reportedly laundering TARP money in her husband's bank; and erstwhile House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who is charged with more than a dozen counts of violating House rules and federal laws.
Almost comically, the letter states that the Democrats are unhappy the Bush administration is "emphasizing only safety and soundness," claiming that "an exclusive focus on safety and soundness is likely to come, in practice, at the expense of affordable housing."
And the Democratic representatives charged that "because Congress has not been willing to jeopardize the GSEs' mission, the administration has turned to attacking the GSEs publicly."
Such attacks could mean "negative opinions in the financial markets regarding the GSEs, raising their cost of financing."
It turned out, of course, that the negative opinions of Fannie Mae, and its evil twin Freddie Mac, in the financial markets were due to the GSEs taking a lead role in crippling the global economy.
The GSEs used the taxpayer-funded financial power of the federal government to give ultralow rate mortgages to millions of Americans with rotten credit ratings — which ended up poisoning the portfolios of investors around the world.
That Fannie and Freddie are disasters is, of course, today undeniable. Even Frank last month told Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto regarding Fannie and Freddie, "I think they should be abolished."
In an election year in which voters are sick of governmental largesse and Uncle Sam's mismanagement of everything, and in which even Frank's "safe" seat in Taxachusetts is endangered, Frank doesn't dare say anything less. |
