Ocasio-Cortez to join House panel overseeing financial sector

The Hill ^ | January 15, 2019 | Sylvan Lane, Scott Wong

[jazusamo]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is slated to join the committee leading the House's oversight of U.S banks, lenders and financial markets.

Ocasio-Cortez has been recommended by Democratic leaders for a spot on the House Financial Services Committee, a Democratic source told The Hill on Tuesday. The full roster of Democrats joining the committee is expected to be released as soon as Tuesday night.

Ocasio-Cortez told Hill.TV in November that she has expressed interest in the Financial Services panel to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which doles out seats on House committees. Politico reported last week that Ocasio-Cortez was "poised to win" a spot on the Financial Services panel.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, has pledged to fight against the Trump administration's rollbacks of post-crisis bank rules. The assignment will give the influential Democratic freshman an powerful perch to push her party toward the left on critical financial issues.

While New Yorkers often land seats on the Financial Services panel, those who do are often more sympathetic Wall Street. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic-Socialist, often touts her refusal to accept corporate donations and criticizes colleagues with close ties to the financial sector.

Ocasio-Cortez spoke out against a GOP proposal to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law in 2017, and supports reimposing a 1930s separation of investment and consumer banking. She's also advocated for a drastic expansion of federal housing aid, a top priority for Waters.

[jazusamo]

This shows the incompetence of Maxine Waters and Pelosi for letting this idiot anywhere near this committee.

[goodnesswins]

Well...she DOES have a minor in ECONOMICS from Boston College...or is it University? ya know....

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Can you imagine this woman interrogating someone during a hearing?

"Like, do you, like, uh, like are providing loans to, like, poor people and women of color?"

[rlmorel]

I have to disagree with you on this. I think Waters and Pelosi know full well what this means.

It isn’t incompetence.

[MayflowerMadam]

Oh, dear ...

[jazusamo]

Yeah, you make a good point.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Why that committee?

Like bank-robber Willie Sutton said, “Because that’s where the money is.”

[Pearls Before Swine]

Well...she DOES have a minor in ECONOMICS from Boston College...or is it University?

Boston College and Boston University... BC and BU... are both universities located in Boston. She went to BU.

[RoseofTexas]

Never ever take or believe anything the mediapukes report about this communist pig being passed up for any committed appointment!! They think just cause she has 11 million snowflake idiots she is the ONE ..ALL manufactured by the mediapukes!! Time to destroy her!! Fascist *itch!

[Skywise]

This may play in our favor - if she’s not sympathetic to wall street they won’t donate to the dems in 2020

[kempster]

Briiliant move Maxine. You are a genius.

[jazusamo]

MAGA!

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[DesertRhino]

Two months ago, she was in a panic about how to rent an apartment. She got an economics degree at Boston college...and became a bartender in a mexican restaurant.

Now she is a member of the majority party, overseeing banking. This is our direction. We are so F’ed.

[mrsmith]

A freshman congressperson is the equialent of “zero”.

[Tallguy]

Like giving gasoline & matches to an arsonist. Good job, Nancy!

[Mears]

She went to Boston University,not Boston College.

.

[rlmorel]

I mean, hell. Maxine Waters? I had kept this clip from an article I can't find the source on:

---

A sitting House representative threatening U.S. businesses with retribution is remarkable enough, but retribution for what?

Apart from the dismissal of personal responsibility inherent in the idea that people were somehow forced into purchasing something they couldn’t afford, of note here is how the situation came about in the first place; how citizens of Waters’ community found themselves able to qualify for mortgages that were beyond their financial means. Making such loans is not in a lending institution’s best interests, so why would one do it? The institutions did it because Maxine Waters, among others, forced them to.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s a small cadre of House Democrats, most prominently Waters and Barney Frank (D-MA), worked in cahoots with then-CEO of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, to loosen mortgage lending standards and practices for the purpose of making homeownership a reality for a greater number of economically disadvantaged Americans. (Raines was subsequently embroiled in a scandal at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that resulted in him having to pay a record $24.7 million settlement.)

At the time Waters heaped praise upon banks and lending institutions for allowing people to sign on the line for loans they could not afford, saying in a September 2003 hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services:

"Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Everything in the 1992 act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100 percent loans.”

In later comments during the hearing, Waters made clear the true mission for Fannie and Freddie that Democrats had in mind, which was finding ways to get minorities into mortgaged houses even if they could not meet qualification requirements for standard loans, such as the ability to bring a down payment to the closing transaction or to borrow an amount in excess of typical underwriting limits.

“Since the inception of goals from 1993 to 2002, loans to African-Americans increased 219 percent and loans to Hispanics increased 244 percent, while loans to non-minorities increased 62 percent. Additionally, in 2001, 43.1 percent of Fannie Mae’s single-family business served low-and moderate-income borrowers….”

Congressional and public records alike show that at the time Waters was a staunch opponent of anything resembling more oversight of lenders or lending practices; thus, more and more loans were made to those least able to pay them back and most likely to default on them.

And default they have, which brings the story full circle to last month when Waters vowed revenge on those banks and lenders that have “done this” to her constituent communities. Sadly, many in those communities believe it. They believe the reason they lost their homes is because when they fell behind on payments and were foreclosed upon, it was because those big banks forced them to take out a loan they couldn’t afford -- without realizing that their congressional representative forced those banks to lend them the money in the first place.

As for Waters’ accusation of banking having done this “to us,” at last check there have been no foreclosure proceedings brought against her $4.69 million, 8-bedroom, 5-bathroom, 6,100-square-foot West Hollywood mansion.

---

Simply astonishing. Her and people like Barney Frank got filthy rich, never spent a day in jail or even had anyone call them a bad name, and millions of Americans lost their life savings due to their actions.

Simply astonishing. They are deliberately trying to destroy our financial systems, and nobody will lift a hand.

[jazusamo]

Yep...She’s the future of the Democrat party, every last RAT should be very worried.

[yesthatjallen]

Rats watching-over the cheese.

[gaijin]

The US banking system’s BOSS is a BAR TENDER..?!