A CONSERVATIVE SLANT - The Other Side of the Story January 13, 2009

MORTGAGE CRISIS

NANCY PELOSI
We should be angry and insulted by the Speaker of the House, who promised to have gentility and honesty guide her days in governing. When she accused Republicans of being unpatriotic for not helping to pass her socialistic bill this past October, even though 40% of her own Democrats voted against it, that should have angered us to action.
This entire mortgage default debacle began with the Jimmy Carter era law which made "redlining" illegal, forcing mortgage companies and banks to give mortgages to those who could not afford or never intended to pay their loans. Fannie Mae was created in 1968 to increase the number of these loans.
Fannie Mae became creative, bundling mortgages and selling them to investors and mutual funds, thereby risking the assets of the 50% of our citizens who own stocks outside of and in retirement funds. Fannie Mae bought and held sub-prime loans as another way to boost their profits. The Clinton administration further loosened home loan requirements.
CEO Franklin Raines and executive Jim Johnson worked for Fannie Mae. Raines made his focus the raising of the earning per share, tying that rise to executive bonuses. Raines took 50 million dollars in bonuses, as well as 40 million in salaries in 5 years. Johnson took 21 million in just one year. Raines and Johnson have been involved in the campaign of Senator Barack Obama. Raines was forced into early retirement, and paid a paltry amount to settle the investigation into his malfeasance, while Fannie Mae was forced to pay 400 million in fines. This current debacle was not caused by a failure of unbridled Capitalism, as many are trying to claim.
During this time a community organization named ACORN, in Chicago, and in 42 states, used "direct action tactics" to force bankers to offer even more mortgages to those who couldn't afford them. Yes, this is the ACORN for whom Senator Obama served as a lawyer, a community organizer, and a trainer of organizers. Over the years, and indeed right now, ACORN has been shown to engage in fraudulent voter registration, adding dead, illegal alien, fictitious and underage voters in five states.- and Obama pledged to meet with them during his period of transition... Do we not see that this might have skewed the election of our President in an illegal way?
In 2004 Congress held hearings on Fannie Mae, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversite, with Republicans leading the way. Democrats such as Maxine Waters and Barney Frank made these statements: "This is a lynching of Franklin Raines"; "We don't have a crisis under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines"; "There is nothing here to say that safety is an issue"; and most astoundingly, "These assets are riskless!". Barney Frank should step down from his leadership of the Congressional Financial Services Committee. Democrats failed America with their support for failing institutions.
In 2005 John McCain co-sponsored a bill to rein in this institution. Opposition from Democrats was so broad that the bill couldn't even be brought up for a vote.
October's Pelosi Bailout Bill would have sent 20% of any bailout profits made - to ACORN, not to Americans or back to the government coffers, which is one reason the bill did not pass. Now the Senate has added 150 billion of pork to the bill in order to buy votes. And Congress wonders why only 10% of us think Congress is doing a good job.... I hope that we never again have to hear Ms. Pelosi say that this is all due to capitalism, President Bush and the Republicans..... There is plenty of blame to go around, but most of it is on the Democrat side of the balance


Waters and Frank failed America

If these were a Republican Senators and Representatives, they would be drummed out of office, or at least investigated, as were Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and Tom Delay. At the least, I expect Barney Frank to lose his seat on the Financial Services Committee. I know - I am dreaming....