The Mortgage/Financial Crisis...

Let's take a look at what was going on in Washington about five years ago...

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.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

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.

Remember this when Democrats try to blame President Bush and Republicans for the current economic fiasco.

And if that’s not enough, how about this:

Lehman Brothers collapse is traced back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two big mortgage banks that got a federal bailout a few weeks ago.

Freddie and Fannie used huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs.

A group called the Center for Responsive Politics keeps track of which politicians get Fannie and Freddie political contributions. The top three U.S. senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and Number two senator Barack Obama.

Hope and change, my friends…hope and change.

Now remember, he’s only been in the Senate four years, but he still managed to grab the Number two spot ahead of John Kerry, decades in the Senate, and Chris Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Fannie and Freddie have been creations of the congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people and, as it turns out, some people who couldn’t afford them.

Since the media seems unconcerned with Obama’s affiliations with domestic terrorists and convicted criminals, maybe they’ll ask a few questions about Obama’s ties to the mortgage/financial crisis...





Don’t hold your breath, though…