“I know Gov. Romney came to Des Moines last week,” the shirt-sleeved, sweating Obama told a crowd of fervent supporters. “Warned about a ‘prairie fire of debt.’ That’s what he said. ‘Prairie fire.’ But he left out some facts. You know, his speech was more like a cow pie of distortion.”Oh really? So it was Bush's "disastrous policies" that moved the country into a near-depression? Will some Democrat explain exactly what those policies were and the mechanics of how they caused the housing bubble, the burst, and the subsequent failure of thousands of mortgage companies, banks and investment firms?,
Taken at face value, the president was simply quoting his Republican opponent to buttress his argument that Romney’s economic proposals were nothing but a throwback to George W. Bush’s disastrous policies that produced financial meltdown and a near-depression.
No, it is clear that the near-depression was caused by Democrats and Democrat policies, namely, forcing banks and mortgage companies to make bad loans, first to minorities and then to everyone. This was going on well before Bush was president; it started mainly with Clinton.
Yet the Daily Bee Ess mouths the above drivel without any kind of support for it. They believe on faith and faith alone, the anything bad that happens was caused by a Republican and only good stuff flows from Democrats. Like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who vigorously defended this reckless policy, which blew up in their faces. Now Democrats achieve some really incredible contortions to blame their mess on Republicans.
Don't believe them.
3 comments:
You could just take Bush's word for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/achievement/chap7.html
or some of his supporters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXLSEWNORnM ("increased home ownership")
Anonymous, first off, I consider anonymous posters to be cowards who aren't very proud of the positions they take. That's understandable in your case, since your case is very weak. You quote some innocuous, lip-service comment that Bush or someone else made about "affordable home ownership" (probably to avoid being labeled a racist). However, the evidence is voluminous, clear and irrefutable that the Democrats, beginning with Clinton, sought to force banks to provide dangerous loans to people with little or no income and little or no credit, on the threat of being sued for "red-lining," not giving loans to minorities out of racism. It was typically Democrat interference into the private sector in an attempt to pay off some of their biggest constituencies.
Bush actually began moving forcefully to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2002, six years before the bubble burst. He was strenuously opposed by Democrats who refused to face reality (even as you do now).
He was opposed by Democrats like Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Charles Schumer and Gregory Meeks.
More in next post.
The NY Times reported Bush's attempt to head off the financial disaster in 2003. They wrote:
“The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios. The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken.”
How did Democrats involved in the mess react to the attempts to regulate their pet project? Simple:
Sen. Charles Schumer (D, NY): “And my worry is that we’re using the recent safety and soundness concerns, particularly with Freddie, and with a poor regulator, as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie’s mission.”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): “nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke… In fact, the GSEs (Fannie, Freddie) have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission – a mission that has seen innovation flourish, from desktop underwriting (no formal analysis) to 100% loans (no collateral).”
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): “I don’t want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision). I want to load the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.”
This is one argument you can't begin to win, Anonymous. Democrat malfeasance is too big, too obvious for you to cover up with cute rhetorical tricks.
Post a Comment