Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

What Bill Clinton won’t say Tonight about His Role in Creating the Economic Mess
Red Alert Politics ^ | 9-5-2012 | John Rossomondo - Commentary

Posted on 09/05/2012 3:44:59 PM PDT by smoothsailing

September 5, 2012

What Bill Clinton won’t say Tonight about His Role in Creating the Economic Mess

John Rossomondo

President Clinton likely will be silent this evening during his speech nominating President Obama for a second term about the role he played in setting the stage for the economic collapse that ensued a decade later.

He will likely pin the blame for the current economic mess on his successor, George W. Bush, and claim that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to take Americans back to the failed policies of the past, while dodging his personal role.

The former President currently appears in an ad that the Obama campaign has running in Virginia and other battleground states. In it, he states that the GOP ticket wants to “cut taxes and go back to deregulation, which is what got us into trouble in the first place.”

Clinton perhaps is the worst of all Democrats for the Obama team to have deliver those lines because his administration set the stage for the subprime mortgage crisis and the banking crisis that ultimately collapsed the economy in 2008.

Not to mention, the economic boom of the second Clinton administration was created in part by a cut in capital gains taxes that overwhelmingly benefitted entrepreneurs and the wealthy, many of whom collect their earnings in stock options rather than salaries.

And that includes Romney.

Responsibility for the economic crisis falls more squarely on Clinton’s shoulders than it does on Bush’s because he signed the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which many analysts say precipitated the banking crisis. The old law barred banks from combining their investment and commercial banking activities.

“What happened over the next eight years was an almost exact replay of the Roaring Twenties. Once again, banks originated fraudulent loans and once again they sold them to their customers in the form of securities,” US News wrote in an Aug. 27, 2012 editorial .“The bubble peaked in 2007 and collapsed in 2008. The hard-earned knowledge of 1933 had been lost in the arrogance of 1999.”

As if that was not enough, the Clinton administration eased Fannie Mae lending requirements among minorities and low-income consumers in Sept. 1999 – a move that when combined with the Glass Steagle repeal resulted in the bank bailouts and the elevated unemployment of the Obama era.

Conservatives railed against Clinton, warning the banks would have to be bailed out eventually.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the New York Times in Sept. 1999. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

Clinton is the most popular of all living former presidents, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told CBS’s Charlie Rose this morning that Clinton and Obama have the “same values, same policies and the same goals.”

But this means that by hitching himself to Clinton’s wagon, Obama loses any credibility he might have in being able to blame the Republicans for creating the economic conditions he inherited.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 1933; 199909; 2007; bailout; billclinton; bubble; fanniemae; glasssteagleact

1 posted on 09/05/2012 3:45:06 PM PDT by smoothsailing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing

Revisionist rat convension


2 posted on 09/05/2012 3:52:35 PM PDT by ronnie raygun (bb)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing
What Bill Clinton won’t say Tonight about His Role in Creating the Economic Mess


3 posted on 09/05/2012 3:55:35 PM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing

I remember at the time the WSJ stating specifically that Clinton’s crap with Fannie Mae - with the criminal he put in charge there - was going to balloon up and then collapse within 10 to 15 years.

It stuck in my mind because I didn’t really know what Fannie Mae was.


4 posted on 09/05/2012 3:58:56 PM PDT by Psycho_Bunny (OWS = The Great American Snivel War)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Psycho_Bunny
I remember at the time the WSJ stating specifically that Clinton’s crap with Fannie Mae - with the criminal he put in charge there - was going to balloon up and then collapse within 10 to 15 years.

Barney Frank blocked any attempt to investigate the stench coming from Fannie Mae for years, until it was too late to do anything. Then he took his ill-gotten gains and his fat retirement benefits and skipped town with his boyfriend.

5 posted on 09/05/2012 4:02:20 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing

Jimmuh Community Reinvestment Act Carter, Bill Repeal Glass Steagal Clinton and Barney Fannie Mae Frank are the 3 primary political architects of the financial meltdown.


6 posted on 09/05/2012 4:21:31 PM PDT by chuckee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing
Just got this via email:

"If Obama gets re-elected, just think of the mess he'll inherit!"

7 posted on 09/05/2012 4:22:09 PM PDT by annieokie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing
Conservatives railed against Clinton, warning the banks would have to be bailed out eventually.

How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett

What else Clinton won't talk about, that helped create this mess.

Bill Clinton’s failure on terrorism

He probably also won't mention that he inherited the end of the Cold War, an economy that was already growing for a year and nine months, and the jobs to be created by the advent of ecommerce and Y2K, none of which had anything to do with anything he did.

8 posted on 09/05/2012 4:25:32 PM PDT by TwelveOfTwenty (Ho, ho, hey, hey, I'm BUYcotting Chick-Fil-A)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: tacticalogic
Barney Frank blocked any attempt to investigate the stench coming from Fannie Mae for years, until it was too late to do anything.

According to this, so did then Senator Obama. In other words, President Obama inherited the mortgage mess from Senator Obama.

9 posted on 09/05/2012 4:29:09 PM PDT by TwelveOfTwenty (Ho, ho, hey, hey, I'm BUYcotting Chick-Fil-A)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing

Is he handing out cigars in Charlotte?


10 posted on 09/05/2012 4:30:53 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: EGPWS

I still think it was brilliant on his part to do something so outrageous and disgusting that it is essentially unprintable. It will not appear in a high school social studies book for a long time, if ever. Therefore, no one will know about it in 50 years. Well, “go big or go home”.


11 posted on 09/05/2012 4:54:11 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: tacticalogic
Barney Frank blocked any attempt to investigate the stench coming from Fannie Mae for years, until it was too late to do anything. Then he took his ill-gotten gains and his fat retirement benefits and skipped town with his boyfriend.

There is a very special slavering beast waiting just for Barney Frank to arrive in hell.

Damn place looks like a zoo, though, with all the politicians headed down there.

And they need a replacement for the Teddy beast. The thing croaked eating all the poisoned fat.

12 posted on 09/05/2012 5:31:54 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing
President Clinton likely will be silent this evening during his speech nominating President Obama for a second term about the role he played in setting the stage for the economic collapse that ensued a decade later.

Anyone who doesn't recognize the Clintons as the MAIN architects of the ENTIRETY of the hell that the United States - AND the world - has become, isn't even in the conversation.

And anyone who doesn't recognize that the phrase "the Clintons" means Hillary, is even worse.

Notice I didn't bother mentioning Obama? There was no need.

13 posted on 09/05/2012 5:35:41 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smoothsailing
As if that was not enough, the Clinton administration eased Fannie Mae lending requirements among minorities and low-income consumers in Sept. 1999 – a move that when combined with the Glass Steagle repeal resulted in the bank bailouts and the elevated unemployment of the Obama era.

Did Clinton do this by executive order or with the help of Congress?

14 posted on 09/06/2012 4:15:51 AM PDT by NEPA (Give me liberty, not debt)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson