dell,
In the "say what" video, I NOTICED that the dates of the hearing(s) was 2004. Let me repeat..." 2 0 0 4 " !
Weren't the Republicans in (100%) TOTAL CHARGE of Government THEN ?????
If Speaker of the House(then)(DENNY HASTERT saw this as a problem, WHY didn't he DO SOMETHING about it ??
Or was this ANOTHER example of the "Republicans in CHARGE(then), "FAILURE to ACT" ????????
I'm sure if this occured after january 2007, when the Democrat re-took control of congress, that I would have heard how.............. BUSH's "hands were tied by a lack of Control over congress !!!!!
Feeling sorry for Barney are we?
In September 2003, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee,
opposed a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to a new agency that would be created within the Treasury Department.
The proposal reflected the administration's belief that Congress "neither has the tools, nor the stature" for adequate oversight.
Frank stated, "These two entities...are not facing any kind of financial crisis.... The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Frank received campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ($42,350 between 1989 and 2008). One can conclude that the donations influenced his support of their lending programs.
In addition, Frank's former partner, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie from 1991 to 1998, where Moses helped develop many of Fannie’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.
In 1991, Frank pushed for reduced restrictions on two- and three-family home mortgages. Frank and Moses' relationship ended around the same time Moses left the company; Frank's support of Fannie and Freddie predated and continued past that relationship.
Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies,
Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis."
When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
In 2000, then-Rep. Richard Baker
proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight.
Mr. Frank dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."
Two years later, Mr. Frank was at it again. "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," he said in response to another reform push. And then: "I regard them as great assets." Great or not, we'll give Mr. Frank this: Their assets are now Uncle Sam's assets, even if those come along with $5.4 trillion in debt and other liabilities.
Again in June 2003, the favorite of the Beltway press corps assured the public that "there is no federal guarantee" of Fan and Fred obligations.
A month later, Freddie Mac's multibillion-dollar accounting scandal broke into the open.
But Mr. Frank was sanguine. "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis," he said at the time.
Three months later
he repeated the claim that Fannie and Freddie posed no "threat to the Treasury." Even suggesting that heresy, he added, could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Barney's days are numbered.
