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Posted on 10/26/2008 4:52:25 AM PDT by Libloather
Barney Frank defends his role leading up to crisis
By Steve Urbon
Standard-Times senior correspondent
October 26, 2008 6:00 AM
NEW BEDFORD — It's essentially a stump speech by now, as U.S. Rep. Barney Frank explains yet again what was and what wasn't his role in the nation's financial meltdown, particularly in the housing market.
Ten days ago at White's of Westport before the regional Chambers of Commerce, again at a Standard-Times editorial board meeting last Thursday, and countless other times, Rep. Frank ran down the list. These were the errors, misjudgments and schemes that amounted to a "Ponzi scheme" of mortgages and securities spin-offs that no one could understand, and that brought down the financial house.
But the 68-year-old congressman, who has represented Massachusetts' 4th District since 1981, will yield nothing to the critics who blame him for the crisis and who demand his resignation on the grounds that at best, he did nothing to correct the fraud and abuses spreading through the system.
There was little, he said, that a Democrat could do in the years that the Republican Party had a lock on the presidency and both houses of Congress, and they were pushing deregulation, he said. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, he said, "explicitly said that the market knows better than I," and refused to exercise his authority to curb sub-prime lending and regulate the exotic — and eventually toxic — financial instruments known as derivatives and credit default swaps.
"He made a conscious decision not to use his power," said Rep., Frank, adding that Democratic attempts to force the issue were rebuffed by the GOP leadership.
Until, that is, the Democrats won back Congress in the 1996 elections. Rep. Frank quoted Lanny Griffith, CEO of BGR Holding and an aide to President George H.W. Bush, praising him for working quickly once back in power to regulate mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Griffin, leader of a competing mortgage and finance group called FM Policy Focus, was quoted in the National Journal as saying, "Barney Frank, as the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, stepped up and said, 'I am convinced we need to do something.' He sat down with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and frankly upset people in the Senate and Republicans in the House. But they came up with a bill that was excellent, and it was the bill that largely became law" earlier this year. FM Policy Focus disbanded, its work complete.
But regulation came too late, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paid the price for two or three years of frantic investment in the market for shaky but alluring mortgage-backed securities. The banking motto of "know your borrower" was supplanted by pursuit of 18 percent profits like those being scooped up by the likes of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Rep. Frank said, "If it's growing like a weed, it's probably a weed."
Rep. Frank stopped short of accusing the bond rating agencies, who were paid to rate these securities, of deliberately overrating them in exchange for huge fees from the issuers. "I don't think they knew what they were talking about. Nobody knew, and they didn't have the incentive to check," he said.
Now that everyone knows and is suffering for it, Rep. Frank said he believes that a second stimulus package must be passed, either right after the November elections or as soon as the new Congress is sworn in, whichever can produce the best bill. He said he wants to see loans made available to quick-start public works and infrastructure projects that are ready to go, or have stalled. He said he wants extended unemployment benefits, and some sort of mechanism to stem the tide of foreclosures, which continues despite the
$700 billion financial bailout.
He said he also wants some effort placed on building affordable rental housing, since there are a great many people for whom home ownership is either out of reach or doesn't make sense for other reasons. That would be a departure, he said, from the Bush era emphasis on home ownership to the point where people were given mortgages they could not afford to pay.
This idiot needs to be put under oath.
Barney Frank should not be chairperson of the House Banking Committee. He knows more about AIDS and sodomy, so a new committee should be established.
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Our polluted Congressional 535 includes too much garbage such as Frank.
The American electorate is uninformed and completely insane in electing these liberal pansies to rule and ruin our lives and our country.
Under Obomba we won't have a chance.
Wonder if he "delivered" the speech on his knees??
Bawney’s Phwank doesn’t do truth.
The Senate blocked the changes that could have fixed the Fannie/Freddie meltdown in 2003 onward. The entire Democrat caucus in the SENATE stood firm, preventing their voters from being cut off without their free money.
So other than cajole the Senate, Phwank did little. During the Clinton years, when the policies were put in place, Phwank helped craft the disaster. proving you can screw lots of people with one Phwank.
**Bawney’s Phwank doesn’t do truth.**
True ... the only thing he should be doing is ... PERP WALK!!
Why on earth do the people of Mass keep electing this gay loon?
You would have to live in Mass. for a while to understand. My family mostly back their goes something like this. Reading the NYT is a big thing if you are a ladder climber. Never listen to talk radio or consider it, NPR in the car for morning news. The older folks, the cheaptest cable with no Fox and something like the New England News Channel which used to be good but it now pablum. More interested in talking about the Sox, the Pats, maybe the Bruins and going to an Museum or Vacation talk. Want their kids educated, and they gravitate to jobs, like in the behinds the scenes machinery of a Community College. Good bennies and Retirement. Unionism and the Democratic Party are still good, they are not deep people to see what is below the tip of the iceberg. In many ways, they have become used to it, no fight left in them anymore, they are Canada....
Thanks !
It really doesn’t matter what this turd says today. He’s on record (C-SPAN & all over YouTube) along with his colleagues ripping into the messenger (OFHEO) investigating Fannie back in 2005 (I think). Unfortunately, the voting public doesn’t really want to be confused with the facts.
How is he even re-elected?
Barney boy — eat my tagline.
That’s a pretty accurate description of mASS residents. The old timers still think every Democrat is JFK. Most older people have two pictures on the wall ; one of Jesus and one of JFK and have a “Bathtub Mary” in the front yard.
(Bathtub Mary for those who don’t know—an old bath tub half buried standing up with a statue of the Mother Mary in it...like a shrine)
Most don’t care what Barney did or does. They say, “He’s a great friend of the fishing industry” “He fights for the little guy” In his district there is a big Portuguese fishing community still quite a bit of factory workers.
I live in the belly of the beast and let me tell you Karl Marx would beat any Republican as long as there was a (D) in front of his name. Republican is a dirty word here.
It really surprises me because most of these people live there lives ultra conservatively.
They just refuse to acknowledge that their party has been hijacked by ultra moonbat left.
Most Americans and probably nearly all Democrats don't know about Barney. A buddy of mine - staunch Democrat with conservative leanings - was ademently argueing that the Dems were no more for alternate lifestyles than the Republicans. He had to google Barney before he believed.
This isn't dirty politics. It is reality politics.
Why, he’ll just lie anyways and people of MA will re-elect him again & again. He has nothing to loose.
He doesn’t have to lie. His constituents hate Republicans. Even when Mitt was elected Governor,he never won Barney’s district. It’s so sad that when I look at the paper the day after the election there’s usually so few Republican votes in my precinct I know who most of them are.
Sorry you have to live there. You are right... he does not have to lie and will be voted in no matter what he does. Thats’ why he can say and do anything knowing he has the full backing of his district.
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