Tea Party Protests Sweep the Country: But What’s the Message? (Updated)
Democrats fought regulation of Fannie and Freddie, and the collapse of those two quasi-government “companies” started the financial crisis.
Contemporary history is inconvenient truth for Democrats:
New York Times, 9-11-03
http://tinyurl.com/5bk3ax
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
[...]
Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said. Hm. Interesting. Kind of tough to blame Bush for “deregulation” when it was Barney Frank who was fighting against tougher regulation of the mortgage industry that may have averted or dampened this current crisis.
Party before country, eh comrades?
