Rush’s Morning Update: Hang ‘Em
September 18, 2008
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To explain the financial market turmoil, Lord Barack Obama, The Most Merciful, points his skinny littlefinger of blame at President Bush –but let’s review history, here.
Long before the subprime crisis, the Bush Administration not only warned of impending calamity, but they had a plan to avert it. Fannie Mae– under the leadership of Clinton appointee Franklin Raines, now an Obama insider– and Freddie Mac had issued over $1.5 trillion in loans, but their accounting was in shambles, and the agency Congress set up to monitor them had failed to reign them in. So on September 11, 2003, Bush proposed what the New York Times called “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis.” Central to Bush’s proposal wascreating a new agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie.
But Democrats cried foul. “These two entities– Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac– are not facing any kind of financial crisis,”said Rep. Barney Frank, ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems…the less we will see in terms of affordable housing,” Rep. Melvin L. Watt, Democrat, North Carolina, agreed, accusing Bush of “weakening the bargaining power of poorer families.”
So instead of solving the problem, Democrat insiders kept using Freddie and Fannie as personal piggy banks;Clinton-era policies fueled the giveaway that isnow coming home to roost. Democrats fought every effort at reform, folks, andnow they’re rewriting history. Republicans ought tohang this crisis high around their political necks — we can dream, at least, can’t we?
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