I’m no economist but it’s clear to me, when the financial meltdown occurred this week, Barack Obama and his campaign loved it. Liberals usually do. Liberal Democratic candidates, stealth liberals like Obama, have time after time, election after election, benefited from a unhealthy economy.
Make no mistake, America is economically illiterate. Proof of that came this week when some of the polls shifted slightly to Obama when the bailout occurred. Why do I think most are economically illiterate? They think that Obama will somehow be able to heal the economy and that John McCain is behind the eight ball. They think like this because Obama tells them so.
Obama, stealth liberal, will clearly raise taxes if elected bringing the economy to it’s knees. He claims he will be taxing the people making over 250 k a year who he claims are “the rich”. It’s populist nonsense. It’s one of the reasons Bill Clinton got elected in 1992, even though as economists look back on it now, the economy in 1991 was beginning to rebound not falter. Back to his tax plan. What about the some 50 MILLION people who are in this country who don’t pay taxes? That’s 35% of this country freeloading on the rest of us. That’s Obamanomics. No solutions and more populist rhetoric.
Obama still, as I write this, has yet to take a clear position on whether or not the bailout was the right thing to do. You know it was wrong. I know it was wrong.
John McCain also knows it’s wrong. He took a clear position against the bailout and is calling for the heads of those who have treated the American economy “like a casino”. Not only is he against the bailouts of Fannie & Freddie, he co-sponsored a bill and had the foresight to see the mortgage meltdown coming years ago.
McCain foresaw the impending Fannie Freddie doom two years before it happened, and co-sponsored legislation that would have required greater oversight of the mortgage lending entities. But, of course, that legislation was torpedoed by the Democrats, never making it out of committee. Obama did nothing to speak out at the time in behalf of the legislation, and would not sign on as a co-sponsor.
Again, not a reformer. Not an agent of change.
Here’s exactly what McCain said on the Senate floor in 2005:
Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
Last Action: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
Status: Dead
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.
Further more, why should hard working people who have fought and kept their homes bail out the 2-3% of those who have gone to foreclosure? Some of these people shouldn’t been given a mortgage in the first place. Most were granted mortgages due to the policies of UBER liberals such as Barney Frank, Charlie Schumer, Bernie Sanders and minority groups who pressured banks into giving more mortgages to minorities just for the sake of being a different race or color and not their financial qualifications.
And Obama wants you and me, some of us who have yet to own a home and will probably not own one in a long time due to the now strict lending rules, to bail these bad loans out?
It’s clear, between the two candidates, who has taken a clear and sound position on this mess. It’s clear to me that McCain will clean up this financial mess in this country. Yet another reason to vote for McCain/Palin.
Mr. L's Tavern 