Posted on 09/29/2008 1:47:34 PM PDT by hecht
HOUSE SAYS NO: BRING ME THE HEAD OF BARNEY FRANK
The U.S. House today rejected an historic $700 billion bailout of Wall Street despite legislative leaders’ appeals to rank-and-file members that the bill was needed to save the U.S. economy from possible catastrophe. The Dow immediately plunged as investors watched the dramatic House vote on television, but recovered a bit after the stunning developments. After more than three hours of debate, the legislation was rejected by a 228-205 final vote.
As congress goes back into negotiations maybe we can reflect a little on the man who helped to cause it all Barney Frank:
Better not bank on Barney Frank He brought the (fiscal) house down
By Michael Graham “I want [Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae] to help with affordable housing, to help low-income families get loans and to help clean up this subprime mess. Otherwise, why should they exist?”
- Rep. Barney Frank, earlier this month.
The Subprime Panic of ’08 and its $1 trillion (and rising!) price tag is too big to blame on any one man. But if we had to, it would be Newton’s own Rep. Barney Frank.
As Winston Churchill might have put it, never before has one man done so much that was so wrong, or shafted so many on behalf of so few.
Entire business sections of newspapers, including this one, have been dedicated to explaining how we got into this mess, and still the typical taxpayer is asking “So what happened?”
The answer is actually quite simple: Freddie and Fannie happened. And they couldn’t have without the ferocious support of Barney Frank.
Freddie and Fannie were supposed to be safe suppliers of mortgage money for relatively low-risk loans. If you could qualify for a loan, F&F would make sure the banks had access to the money to make that loan, cheap money because it was backed by the American taxpayers.
But liberals like Barney Frank wanted more. They wanted the low cost of low-risk loans to be extended to higher-risk borrowers with lower incomes, fewer assets or less-solid credit. Barney and friends used the regulations of the Community Reinvestment Act to threaten lenders into making these loans. And banks, trying to meet Frank’s demands, expanded riskier lending schemes like subprime mortgages.
That’s when Freddie and Fannie stepped in. As Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute put it: “They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools.”
Lenders asked themselves, why should I care how shaky these borrowers are or risky the loans if a government-backed body is going to buy them up anyway?
The loans were made, the housing market bubbled, contributions from F&F flowed to Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, and everyone was happy. Until they weren’t.
Without Freddie and Fannie’s reckless expansion, the housing bubble doesn’t happen. Without the implied promise behind F&F’s money, investment banks don’t dive into the derivatives market.
Instead, we did it Barney’s way.
Not only has Frank spent his career stopping any real reform of Fannie and Freddie, he repeatedly insisted they weren’t backed by the taxpayers. “There is no federal liability whatsoever,” Frank said in 2000.
But two weeks ago, we had to bail them out with $200 billion in our tax dollars.
Alan Greenspan, John McCain and others warned that F&F were taking on too much risk, but Frank dismissed these “overblown” fears as ideological attacks against his favorite cash cow. Even after Franklin Raines and Joe Johnson were caught red-handed mismanaging these institutions, Frank still insisted “we are not facing any kind of crisis.”
Just how deep in the Fannie/Freddie tank was he? As The Wall Street Journal reports: “Mr. Frank was publicly arguing for an increase in the size of their combined $1.4 trillion portfolios right up to the day they were bailed out. Even now . . . he opposes Treasury’s planned reduction in the size of the portfolios starting in 2010.”
Our markets have collapsed, we’re paying through the nose, and Barney Frank is still fighting to keep Fannie and Freddie on the dole.
Why? Because in his mind, the point of Fannie/Freddie is taxpayer-subsidized housing for low-income borrowers - no matter how bad their credit or how high the cost.
“Otherwise,” he asks, “why should they exist?”
And what about us, the responsible borrowers and hard-working taxpayers stuck with the trillion-dollar tab? In Barney’s world, that’s the only reason we exist. He spends. We pay.
This truly is Barney Frank’s bailout.
I have been asking who these dems are covering for? It appears that an all-out investigation is absolutely necessary! Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the rest of the dem clowns are going to have to answer to all of us! We will not stand by and let them create “panic” so they can walk away with the election. It is time for truth to prevail.
it’s Fwank dimmit!
The mental picture created by the words of this thread title is ugly.
No problem. Barney will give you his own head.
From a prior post by johnnycap :
By the way, did anybody hear Pelosi say that Dodd and Frank will conduct an investigation as to who is to blame for this debacle? I was outraged.
That is like having Oswald Manage the Warren Commission.
They should not exist.
That would be funny to see!
Frank and Dodd must both resign in disgrace as the precondition for any new bail out legislation.
Which head? The one he uses or the one that sits on his shoulders?
bttt
..expect anything different?, they had Gorelick on the 9/11 commission
Two things occur to me based on the number of Democrats who voted against this bill:
A. There must have been a lot of emails and phone calls against this bill, otherwise it would have passed.
B. Nancy Pelosi has to be the weakest Speaker in the history of the house. That she could not get enough Dems to vote for this bill indicates that most Dems pay her no mind. No bill of this magnitude would ever reach the floor with a speaker like Rayburn if the votes weren’t pre-determined.
the president of the united states does not get million+ bonuses......why should an underling at fannie may make that kind of money? they are all crooks.
Rayburn is spinning in his grave. The Democrats might decide they can no longer afford Nancy's incompetence.
Nobody in the GOP has the stones to do anything about Barney Frank. They had their chance years ago but sat there and sucked their thumnbs. This bi-partisan nonsense is a cop out for those who can’t think long term, lack conviction, or are corrupt.
barney needs to be kicked out of office and sent to jail to be someones woman. Oh wait he would enyoy that to much, make him clean toilets and puke piles.
Bawney Fwank, the pervert is just engaging in bluster, hoping that we won't have access to this...
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