Posted on 01/08/2009 11:44:40 AM PST by GOP_Lady
Democrats and the media have the housing story wrong.
Mythmaking is in full swing as the Bush administration prepares to leave town. Among the more prominent is the assertion that the housing meltdown resulted from unbridled capitalism under a president opposed to all regulation.
It took Fannie and Freddie over three decades to acquire $2 trillion in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Together, they held $2.1 trillion in 2000. By 2005, the two GSEs held $4 trillion, up 92% in just five years. By 2008, they'd grown another 24%, to nearly $5 trillion. They held almost half of all American mortgages.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Government spending is an entirely different issue.
“I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve heard the President explain this during press conferences, interviews, SotU addresses, etc.
Oh, wait...”
I remember him taking credit for record rates of home ownership.
And Ramos & Compean are still rotting in jail....no pardon for them.
Yep! They are asking what the “biggest” legacy of the W White House will be and I must answer the complete and utter lack of PR and bravado that was needed to push back!
I think back to the Reagan years and every single time the press and the Dems tried to push something over or onto him or the Repubs, he was QUICK and HARSH to defend and set the story straight.
But W rolled over like Bawney Fwank and took it up the keister - EVERY TIME! That is one of the main things that I am ashamed of for W; he had no cajones for the PR battle.
The big push to reform Fannie & Freddie took place in 2005. Bush had just won re-election and the surge was still two years away.
It boils down to this: Bush & the GOP-majority Congress tried to reform Fannie & Freddie. And they failed. They didn't have the will to see it through.
BTTT!
And at that time the number of toxic subprime loans had exploded to create the unstoppable train wreak that was inevitable when home prices stopped going up. Home prices already started to top about the time the surge was approved.
I concur.
I talked about this with a few dems today. One of them said that it was Phil Graham’s fault for “deregulation” and another said that it was John McCain’s fault. I also told them that Congress did not do their job of oversight of Freddie and Fannie, and they blamed the Republicans, of course.
When a Dem mentions the Graham/Leach/Bliley deregulation bill ask them why almost all Dems voted for it and Clinton also supported it. It passed with 90 votes in the Senate and 362 in the House.
Truth is the deregulation bill had nothing to do with creating the subprime mess with one exception. The exception being that Clinton threatened a veto and Senate Dems said they would not vote for the bill unless one addition was made when the Senate and House versions were combined before a final vote. That addition was a CRA requirement for banks merging:
The bill then moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. Democrats agreed to support the bill after Republicans agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns; the conference committee then finished its work by the beginning of November.[4] [6] On November 4, the final bill resolving the differences was passed by the Senate 90-8 [7] and by the House 362-57.[8] This legislation was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[9]
While Karl is correct in this article, the Democrats that Bush bent over backwards to please, hate him and always will. Bush alienated much of the Republican and conservative base.
Now no one cares, we're just anxious for him to go away.
bump
Hopefully, someday Bush will be subjected to the same "justice" his administration has put Ramos & Compean through.
If you read this thread closely, you can see exactly why the Bush PR effort failed. Anyone really think they would have listened to him about Fannie and Freddie? Or would they have heard “amnesty?” Think about it.
I care. This is the worse financial crisis since the depression and the public needs to know the truth. Especially when you consider that two of the main individuals (Dodd, Frank) responsible for this crisis are also now two of the main persons in charge of fixing it. They should suffer the same fate as Ken Lay.
I care along with you and I want the truth to be known as well.
President Bush Didn't Want To Be a Fascist...he was forced.
I disagree in the sense of policy. President Bush allowed Congress to let Freddie and Fannie go uncontrolled as he allowed Congress to spend without limit.
We know the democrats are scum.
But GW Bush was the President who could have used his veto power to get the attention of Congress.
He didn’t bother.
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