Barney Frank on Obama’s Mandate

RUSH: Barney Frank, the truth has been spoken. This afternoon, MSNBC Live the anchor Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, asked Barney Frank, ‘The White House has already hinted at compromises as we’ve suggested, fixing the AMT, some of these other things, reaching out to the Democrats, telling Henry Waxman not to put the family planning money in. Are the Democrats going to go ahead and compromise, and should they?’

FRANK: The fact that we are talking about this very large, by traditional standards, recovery package is an acknowledgment that there — the right-wing philosophy of leave the market alone, it hasn’t worked. Now, it’s a mistake sometimes politically to accept your basic victory and then get too bitterly embroiled over the details. This is a repudiation of the Republican conservative philosophy and an affirmation of what’s traditionally been Democratic philosophy, which is private and public sectors can work together constructively.

RUSH: There you have it, Barney Frank making it official. The Democrat Party theory is that the election was a victory for the combining of the public and private sector, and there’s no such thing as that. One, he’s going to usurp the other. The public sector, the government, will usurp the private sector. This was not a failure of Republican right-wing philosophy of leave the market alone. The market was fixed by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. The mortgage market, the lending market, was fixed, it was rigged. This is outrageous. This is outrageous. If John Thain is going to be forced to resign, if this guy at Lehman Brothers, Fuld, if he’s going to be forced to resign, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd ought to be walking out the door right behind him. I am serious as I can be. Andrea Mitchell then said this: ‘Now, the Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, pressured Citigroup to drop plans for their $50 million jet. Certainly a pretty big, fat symbol. What should be done, what about legislation, what about a new regulator to look at the way TARP money is being spent, and whether or not the banks are not only getting the money out to people, but whether they’re using the money to recapitalize themselves and not do what John Thain and others have done in terms of decorating their office suites?’

FRANK: I was never for John McCain for president, but one more good reason is that apparently John Thain would have been his secretary of the Treasury so that’s one more reason to be grateful. I’m very disappointed at John Thain.

RUSH: So here again the diversion focusing on the jet, focusing on the bathroom, which means nothing to you. It means nothing to us. What means everything is how trillions of dollars is being usurped and taken out of the private sector by Barney Frank, who now claims that’s what the election was about. The election was about government getting bigger and taking over parts of the private sector. That’s what he says it was about. That’s the mandate Obama thinks he’s got. This is why it’s so frustrating. I cannot believe so much of the conservative intelligentsia stands or sits silent while this is going on. Mr. Frank, Congressman Frank, I have a question. Did John Thain pay his taxes? Did the guys at Citigroup that you have Geithner investigating and telling what they can and can’t do, did they pay their taxes? ‘Cause we know that Geithner didn’t. Did Thain pay his taxes? We want to know.