The Sub-prime Crisis Was Created by Democrats

Partially from a commentary on PoliticUsUSA.com

So many people are turning a blind eye to the fact that the Democrats, especially Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, are responsible for the present state of our economy.

1977: President Jimmy Carter (D) signs the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) into law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc. Results: Statistics show that CRA has not helped decrease crime nor significantly improved so-called poor communities.

1992: Representative Jim Leach (R- Iowa) warned of the danger that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the very few who held stock in the agencies.

1993: President Bill Clinton's administration extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules turning the quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks. Both were also growing into entities handing out favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption -- and now the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

1994: Despite warnings, Bill Clinton unveiled his National Home Ownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways Congress never intended.

1995: President Bill Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite the rules of home finance. Robert Rubin's group reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans in order to receive a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of ethnicity -- specifically minority loans were approved almost carte blanche.

1997 - 1999: Bill Clinton , bypassing the newly Republican led Congress, enlisted Andrew Cuomo (then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development) to assist in allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Representative Barney Frank (D) and Senator Chris Dodd (D), Congress doubled-down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing the agencies to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% holdings for normal banks. Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could borrow at lower rates than commercial banks, their enterprises' boomed!
With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no documentation", "no income verification" -- requiring no money down and no verification of income.
Worse still was the cronyism: 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidies of as much as $182 billion. Some analysts say that much of those billions went to the priviliged shareholders and not to poor communities.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's excesses. Congress held hearings the following year, but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key Congressmen and radical groups (such as ACORN), ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. "We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks," Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Treasury Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the "special status" afford by the CRA and Clinton's expansion of it. Democrats raised a ruckus, as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by a politically connected CEO. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets," Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. That was the last chance, during the Clinton era, for reform.

2001: Republicans tried repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie, but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform. Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, who ran key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants, were especially critical of any reforms.

2003: President George Bush proposed what the NY Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago". Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress: "We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk". Senator John McCain, along with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, "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". Senator Harry Reid (D) accused the GOP of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership". The bill went nowhere.

2007: Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over half of the twelve trillion dollar US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall Street to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in 2007, sub-prime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was fifteen years in the making.

2008: Presidential candidate John McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths. President Bush urged reform a recorded 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking points about this being a "Republican" disaster. A few Republicans are complicit, but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!

It's clear that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted with our tax dollars. Adding the extreme liberalism of Barack Hussein Obama will NOT turn our economy around -- but only make things MUCH worse. If you truly want to know how bad it can get, cast your vote for Obama. As for me and my house, "NObama - Keep the change!"

Richard Viguerie: It's Sarah Palin's Principles, Stupid

Article from christiansunite.com
With the popularity of Governor Sarah Palin providing lift to the GOP ticket, Republicans are starting to feel better about races for Congress and at the state level. But most of them are missing the point of her popularity and may be personally disappointed on Election Day, Richard A. Viguerie said.

"Too many Republican candidates think Governor Palin is popular because of her gender or because she's a fresh face with a 'cool' life story. They think they can hold onto her skirt and that her popularity will help carry them to victory," said Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

"The truth is, 'It's Palin's principles, stupid!' It's what she represents, as a reformer fighting corruption, even in her own party. It's because you can believe her when she says she will wage war on the corrupt Washington establishment. That's not something you can say about most candidates, who stood by throughout their careers doing precisely nothing about the culture of corruption that infests Washington and politics in general.

"And she's popular because she holds to the core beliefs of the coalition that elected Ronald Reagan in two landslides--on taxes, spending, the role of government, and traditional ideas of right and wrong.

"The popularity of Palin--and the heightened popularity of John McCain, who selected her as his political soul mate--won't help other Republicans unless they also hold to those principles and campaign credibly on those principles.

At a minimum, Republican candidates must demand the top-to-bottom removal of the Republican leadership that nearly sank the party over the past few years. That includes the leadership in Congress, the Bush administration, and GOP officials at the national level and in most states.

Republican candidates must tell us how they'll shut down the lobbyist-and-Big-Government political machines that dominate the nation's capital and most state capitals. And candidates for Congress must tell us how they'll tear K Street down to street level and sow salt in the earth so that nothing ever grows there again."

Said Viguerie: "It's a cliche, but it's true: The American people are fed up, and want change. By picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has gone a long way in convincing voters that he will be a warrior for the right kind of change. But lower-level Republicans will do poorly unless they demonstrate clearly and credibly that they will be on the front lines of the epic battles to come."

A Clear and Present Media Bias

I just ran across an excellent post by Larry Clifton over at the American Politics and Media blog. Mr. Clifton published the post on September 8th. I'll share some of it with you...

... There is a lot about Sarah Palin that I don’t know. I do feel that I am comfortable and impressed with what I do know about her. On the other hand, there is a lot about McCain that I do know. Probably too much. In either case, I believe both are brave patriots who put country first.

Regarding Obama…not so much. Perhaps there is a bias behind my discrimination against his campaign; if so, it is appropriate and well documented. Today, Obama claims he is for the Bush tax-cuts that he has railed against for so long. Last week, along with House Speaker Pelosi and her ilk in Congress, he suddenly decided that offshore drilling might be a good idea after opposing it for his entire 300 or so career days present in Congress. And that whole thing about rural Americans “clinging to guns and religion…” he didn’t mean it, but it sure sounded good in San Francisco. Far more troubling is Obama’s reluctance to show our military - the military he wants to lead - a small modicum of respect.

Americans may argue the merits of the Iraq war for decades, or at least until Middle Eastern women no longer need to worry about being murdered by their fathers for choosing their own husbands. But arguing that our soldiers and their highly successful surge against Al Qaeda, which calmed the country and slowed violence against civilians while drastically lowering our troops’ combat casualties, didn’t work – well, even Al Jazeera can’t spin that garbage.

So, last week Obama admitted that the surge that he voted against and vehemently protested is a military success. It seems that as the election enters the home stretch, Obama is morphing into a rabid right-wing Republican. ...

You should read the entire post -- here.

T-shirt from NOBama.com

Vice President Palin? Now, That is REAL Change!

Conservatives and mainstream Republicans, one and all, received a pleasant surprise when Presidential hopeful John McCain announced his running mate this morning. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is going to keep the hopes of a woman in the White House alive for voters in 2008. As for conservatives, worried about the auspices of an ultra-liberal like Barak Obama becoming our next President....

“They’re beyond ecstatic,” said Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. “This is a home run. She is a reformer governor who is solidly pro-life and a person of deep Christian faith. And she is really one of the bright shining new stars in the Republican firmament.”

The forty-four year old Palin is known to conservatives for choosing not to have an abortion after learning that she was carrying a child with Down syndrome. “It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important that is to the conservative faith community,” Mr. Reed said.

Ms. Palin, a former mayor of the small town of Wasilla, an Anchorage suburb, mother of five and one-time beauty pageant queen, first rose to prominence as a whistle-blower uncovering ethical misconduct in state government.

As she was introduced by Senator McCain this morning, Ms. Palin praised the achievement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost a long and bitter primary race against Senator Obama, saying that she had left “18 million cracks” in the highest glass ceiling in the land. Then, making an explicit appeal to Ms. Clinton’s disappointed supporters, she said, “It turns out that the women in America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling.”

Personally, I'm glad to know that a true, pro-life Christian woman is going to be part of the Presidential election process. Her influence will be needed as our next President is sure to select at least two Supreme Court justices -- a decision that will positively or adversely affect every person in this nation. Vice President Palin? Now, that is REAL change!