850 Billion Dollar Stimulus Package

Look at the compromises the Dems worked into the legislation. Frank and the Dems took a stand that FANNIE/FREDDIE didnt need more regulation. He claimed the fears surrounding FANNIE/FREDDIE were exaggerated by the republicans and the white house. He said they were both sound and could withstand the disaster's republicans said we were facing. Even after working to free FANNIE/FREDDIE from more regulation they still voted against the bill. The republicans should have ramrodded it through but undoubtedly would have faced filibuster and political suicide. With the Dems claiming Bush and the Repubs were trying to limit home ownership they had no way of winning that battle.

Yes they were. Many subprime lenders were tied into the financial entities that evolved from repeal of Steagall and would not have existed without the FSMA. We dont learn from our mistakes either. Look back at the eary 80's when the S & L's were removed from Steagall. Same thing then, same thing now. Even with tighter regulation you couldnt see through enough layers of these conglomerates with an army of accountants. The financials are so convoluted there isnt a regulatory agency to this day capable of correctly auditing them.

Exactly right and what started that? Then CRA, loosening of FANNIE/FREDDIE loan guidelines and repeal of Stegall that allowed these tightly regulated traditional banks to merge with loosely regulated wall street banks. It was all a politically correct sham that we lapped up lock, stock and barrel.

 

Well there ya have it. Thats all the evidence Frank needed. A simple 'no sir" comment. What a fuggin joke.

 

I've been looking for a few days, why did the republican controlled house, senate, and white house fail to pass a bill to regulate fannie/freddie, and now I've found it. It wasn't Mr. Barney Frank, it was the REPUBLICANS who sold out.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/19/politics/p093616D96.DTL&feed=rss.news

Well, there you have it. The republicans get to talk out both sides of their mouths, "let's regulate fannie", but just enough republicans opposed the measure so when combined with the dems, it could not pass.

Republicans PLEADING with FRIST to have a vote, but Frist just let it die.

It was a republican based lobbying company, whose CEO, Doug Goodyear manged the republican convention for McCain. Those boys ain't clean!

 

Whats so news breaking about this? They already had the dems bought and paid for. Of course they are going to target republicans because EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT OPPOSED REGULATING FANNIE AND FREDDIE.

How convienient to leave out that small fact. Never let facts get in the way of a good conspiricy theory.

So what if a couple republicans bowed to a lobby, happens all the time. Make no mistake though, they were the only party calling for tighter control and predicting what happened. Thats a far cry better then the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS selling out and ignoring the signs.

Who's to blame, every single democrat who sold out or a few republicans who sold out? Dems win in a landslide vote...ALL vs A FEW.

 

The party in control, with every majority needed to legislate appropriately is responsible, period. That's why the american public handed them the ball, and they fumbled, pure and simple. Any republicans vote for the TARP bailout last Oct.? Not a one, straight party line vote even though it was for the republican president. They are fully capable, they had all the majority they needed, and they couldn't keep their own party in line.

 

They did not have the majority needed. This was a politically correct hot potato that was a whisper away from a filibuster they couldnt squash. If anyone touched the dems sacred cows they made it plain and clear what they would do. They would march in lock step shouting the republicans were trying to take away the peoples ability to buy. They said it unanimously in 2003 and again in 2005. The party that did not want tighter regulation for FANNIE and FREDDIE is the Dems.

 

So why did fannie spend $2 million with a repub lobbying company to lobby republicans to oppose the regulation, if the repubs didn't even have the majority needed to pass it? That doesn't make sense.

 

Sure it makes sense. The Hagel legislation research contained seasoned information that wasnt available in 2003. It would have been a little more difficult to filibuster so they needed the insurance in case some dems broke ranks. Its called covering your bets and they did it well. Hell, I do something similar in my business right now.

You cant deny the fact the dems were against more restrictions on F & F. The evidence is overwhelming and the dems were deeply committed to maintaining F & F unchanged. Its an undeniable fact.

Of course Franks had other motives but we wont go there. :hihi:

 

If it was in the bag, you don't have to shell out for insurance or anything else, so it was not a done deal that the dems could hold out alone.

If the repubs had exhibited any shred of bi-partisanship through the DeLay/Bush/Rove/Cheney regime, instead of power politics, they could have called a favor, turned a few southern democrats, offered them a deal. But their scorched earth policy with respect to the dems, they had no favors to call. The result of 4 years of bad management. You think you don't need anybody, you kick them, then when you could use a little help, you've got no capital in the bank to draw on. It's just another testimony to the poor management of affairs by the repubs, that they lost their own votes on the issue, and had such poor relations with the dems that they couldn't pick up a handful of votes to cover their own defections. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The repubs were poor managers of congress and even with majorities in both houses, couldn't get the job done when it was on the line.

Bush took credit for the strong housing market at the state of the union, Chris Cox at the SEC relaxed the net capital requirements for the 5 investment banks in 04 resulting in a bankruptcy at Lehman, Bear and Merrill being acquired, and the other 2 are no longer investment banks.

Greenspan in 04 calls for new mortgage products beyond 30 year fixed mortgages and coupled with his 1% fed funds rate, we get negative amortization adjustable rate mortgages with 2% teaser rates and the size of subprime mortgages doubles overnight.

The dems were wrong to oppose regulation of fannie, but that is not the totality of the problem. The repubs were in control with the majority, and a republican lobbying company is buying republican votes while republicans are failing to regulate from the SEC to the federal reserve. There is plenty of blame to go around, but the repubs were in control of every major entity with a chance to stop this, and they let it pick up steam in 04-06.

We didn't even need regulation of fannie. If you can't get that, the repubs had the authority to regulate the loan originators (they passed a bill into law in July 08 to do just that), they could have regulated use of derivatives which is what primarily killed AIG and has cost us $180 billion so far. There is a lot they could have done, but they didn't do anything. Subprime lending accelerated dramatically in 04-06 and the repubs could not come up with one action in that timeframe to slow it down an iota, despite having all the power positions.