Do you honestly believe that Newt's ability to get contracts worth close to $2 million dollars had nothing to do with his former government position and contacts? I worked for the USG for 36 years and live in the DC metro area. What Newt did is so prevalent and common that I can't fathom why anyone would believe otherwise. The revolving door in Washington is part of the rampant corruption that fuels Big Government and its control of close to 50% of our economy. Freddie and Fannie have been notorious in providing sinecures to politicians and for awarding sweetheart contracts. I live less than two miles from Freddie Mac's huge facility.
I won't say that Gingrich was to blame for the financial breakdown. However, it would be fair to say that Congress did not exercise the proper oversight, including during the time that Gingrich was in Congress and in a leadership role. If you believe what is in the article, "But as Speaker in 1995, according to news reports at the time, Mr. Gingrich helped to kill an effort by then House Budget Chairman John Kasich to impose user fees on Fannie and Freddie. The fees were intended to offset the cost advantage provided to the companies by their implicit government guarantee," a case could be made that he bears some responsibilty along with the rest of Congress and the WH. The Community Redevelopment Act was passed under Bush 41.
Gingrich is a crony capitalist taking advantage of his former government position and contacts. The article goes into some detail on Gingrich's role and support of the GSEs while in Congress and afterwords. Gingrich is a Big Government Rep whose real goal is make government run more efficiently and cheaply similar to Romney. Gingrich is not about to roll back the welfare state. He was a big supporter of the Medicare Prescription Drug expansion. He supports the GSEs. He supported cap and trade. The list goes on and on.
Just listen to the clip below of Newt's defense of why he supported the Medicare prescription drug program despite its huge unfunded liability costs. It is this kind of rationale by the politicians that are bankrupting this country.
On the fannie /freddie mess is it not true that we are all making educated guesses on what actually happened and what actually transpired between Newt and the govt. agencies unless we have seen what he submitted to them?