Posted on 10/20/2008 10:28:52 AM PDT by markomalley
Washington — Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.
Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after a Senate committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005.
All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.
In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.
"If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," the senators wrote in a letter that proved prophetic.
Unknown to the senators, DCI was undermining support for the bill in a campaign targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage.
McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign.
He signed Hagel's letter and three weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.
By the time McCain did so, however, DCI's effort had gone on for nine months and was on its way to killing the bill.
McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, or his lobbying firm has taken more than $2 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dating to 2000. In December, Freddie Mac contributed $250,000 to last month's GOP convention.
Sen. Barack Obama has received $120,349 in political donations from employees of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; McCain $21,550.
The Republican senators targeted by DCI began hearing from prominent constituents and financial contributors, all urging the defeat of Hagel's bill because it might harm the housing boom.
Before 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Democratic strongholds. After 2004, Republicans ran their political operations.
On Friday night, Hagel's chief of staff, Mike Buttry, said of Hagel's legislation: "It is outrageous that a congressionally chartered government-sponsored enterprise would lobby against a member of Congress's bill that would strengthen the regulation and oversight of that institution," Buttry said. "America has paid an extremely high price for the reckless, and possibly criminal, actions of the leadership at Freddie and Fannie."
Nine of the 17 targeted Republican senators did not sign Hagel's letter, including Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine.
George Voinovich, also among the 17 targeted Republicans, did sign Hagel's letter.
Twenty other Republican senators did not sign the letter.
Democrat Columnist calls out the media on this very issue:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2110339/posts
The article itself states that support for the reform legislation was nearly universal among Republican Senators and that it was the Democrat Senators who were putting its passage in doubt. So a lobbying firm was hired to pressure Republican Senators to oppose the bill.......
Guess what, the headlines should read “Fannie Mae lobbied to pressure a few Republican Senators to join ALL of the Democrats in opposing reform.”
It was the ‘Rat party that stood firmly in the way of reforming and controlling Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. The fact that pressure was also being put on vulnerable Republicans to switch to the DEMOCRAT position does not alter the basic facts: the Democrats, including Obama and Biden as well as Dodd, Frank (in the House), et al bear the overwhelming fault and responsibility in protecting FM/FM from serious reform and oversight.
What part of "all" can the Mediascum fail to understand?? The reform of FM/FM was overwhelmingly a Republican priority and was blocked by universal Demagogue opposition combined with pressure put on a few vulnerable and/or venal Republican Senators.
Any support that the Republicans gave Fannie and Freddie was due to ignorance. That is clearly not the case for the Democratic Party’s involvement.
The forgivibility of ignorance seems to be dependent on whether the person in question is a democrat. Example:
GW Bush, not a Democrat, and therefore not forgivable.
Barak Obama, Democrat, and therefore forgivable.
See how this works?
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