RUSH: I wonder, Alan Greenspan, has he figured out that he’s got no place in the future in this regime? Because there are hearings going on, the super blue-ribbon panel looking into the housing 
boom, and he told ’em the truth this morning. ‘Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan chastised critics on Wednesday by pointing out that Congress pushed the US central bank to make sure lending to poorer Americans kept rising in the 2000s.’ In other words, Greenspan told these investigators today, (paraphrasing) ‘Look, Congress,’ meaning Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, ‘and a whole bunch of others, told us to keep the subprime loan process going. In fact, they told us to ratchet it up.’ Greenspan actually told the truth about this whole problem. You know what happens to people inside Washington who tell the truth about the regime. This is not good.
He said, ‘If the Fed as a regulator had tried to thwart what everyone perceived as a fairly broad consensus that the trend was in the right direction, homeownership was rising and that was an unmitigated good, then Congress would have clamped down on us. There’s a presumption that the Federal Reserve’s an independent agency, and it is up to a point, but we are a creature of the Congress and if … we had said we’re running into a bubble and we need to retrench, the Congress would say ‘we haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” He’s saying Congress doesn’t listen to us anyway. They do what they’re going to do. So there it is, what we all know, he just laid this at the feet of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Greenspan, even more, this on Capitol Hill this morning at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
GREENSPAN: While the roots of the crisis were global, it was securitized US subprime mortgages that served as the crisis’ immediate trigger. The surge in demand for mortgage-backed securities was heavily driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were pressed by the department of Housing and Urban Development and the Congress to expand affordable housing commitments. The enormity of these purchases was not revealed until Fannie Mae in September 2009 reclassified a large part of its prime mortgages securities portfolio as subprime.
RUSH: I don’t hear JP Morgan mentioned there; I don’t hear Chase; I don’t hear Goldman Sachs mentioned; I don’t hear AIG mentioned. He told the truth. It was securitized US subprime mortgages that served as the crisis’ immediate trigger, the surge in demand for mortgage-backed securities heavily driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which were pressed by the department of Housing and Urban Development and the Congress to expand affordable housing commitments, meaning loan money to people you knew couldn’t pay it back so we could brag about how many people in our country have homes. I can’t believe he told the truth up there. It must mean that he’s got plans that don’t involve Washington.
By the way, this mining disaster, have you people in the media, Mr. Harwood, have you ever heard of Senator Jay Rockefeller, have you heard of Senator Robert Byrd? Hell, I’m surprised the mine’s not named after him. Everything else in the state is. It’s because this guy donated to Republicans that this happened? That’s what they’re trying to say. Anyway, let’s take a brief time-out here, folks. I have some discussion on the value-added tax. It’s coming, and a lot of people don’t know what it is, and the Heritage Foundation Morning Bell, their blog today has a pretty good explanation that can supplement what I know about it.
Barack Obama, let’s see, was asked two easy questions this week: ‘Are we overtaxed?’ And he gave a 17-minute, 2,500-word rambling answer that never answered the question. And then he was asked, ‘Who was your favorite White Sox player when you were a kid.’ We got two dishonest, insincere, confused non-answers. We learned a lot about Barack Obama from two simple questions and his two convoluted answers. One, he’s boring. Two, he’s a phony and he can’t be trusted, but we knew that he can’t be trusted.