NoisyRoom.net

By: Nelson Abdullah
Conscience of a Conservative

Just where did the economic mess come from that Obama says he inherited? It’s been mentioned before but since Barack Hussein Obama keeps bringing it up I think we ought to set the record straight. You’ve seen the commercials, look how bad the economy was in January 2009 when Obama took office. It was Bush’s fault. WRONG. Here are the facts. In the middle of George W. Bush’s second term, the news media was in a frenzy attacking him so bad that the 2006 elections turned over control of Congress to the Democratic Party. This fact is crucial to understanding what happened next.

The day the Democrats took over was not January 22, 2009, when Barack Hussein Obama took office, it was actually January 3rd 2007, the day Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.

The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is “Bush’s Fault”, think about this: January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress.

At the time:

The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH!

Remember the day… January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee. The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy? BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES! Remember those Sub-Prime mortgages?

In the Democrat controlled Congress of 2008, two such important committees were the Senate Banking Committee under the leadership of Democrat Senator Chris Dodd and the House Financial Services Committee, led by Democrat Congressman Barney Frank. Together, these two Democrats passed rules and regulations that committed the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fanny Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as Freddie Mac, to obligate banks to make sub-prime housing loans to people who were judged to be unable to afford them. An article from the British newspaper, The Independent, tells the whole story.

Thursday, October 09, 2008
Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd deserve blame for Fannie and Freddie

The Independent, a British newspaper, blames the Democrats for the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

What is the proximate cause of the collapse of confidence in the world’s banks? Millions of improvident loans to American housebuyers. Which organisations were on their own responsible for guaranteeing half of this $12 trillion market? Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the so-called Government Sponsored Enterprises which last month were formally nationalised to prevent their immediate and catastrophic collapse. Now, who do you think were among the leading figures blocking all the earlier attempts by President Bush — and other Republicans — to bring these lending behemoths under greater regulatory control? Step forward, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

In September 2003 the Bush administration launched a measure to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under stricter regulatory control, after a report by outside investigators established that they were not adequately hedging against risks and that Fannie Mae in particular had scandalously mis-stated its accounts. In 2006, it was revealed that Fannie Mae had overstated its earnings — to which its senior executives’ bonuses were linked — by a stunning $9.3billion. Between 1998 and 2003, Fannie Mae’s executive chairman, Franklin Raines, picked up over $90m in bonuses and stock options.

Yet Barney Frank and his chums blocked all Bush’s attempts to put a rein on Raines. During the House Financial Services Committee hearing following Bush’s initiative, Frank declared: “The more people exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness [at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae], the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially.” His colleague on the committee, the California Democrat Maxine Walters, said: “There were nearly a dozen hearings where we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Mr Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and particularly at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr Franklin Raines.”

When Mr Raines himself was challenged by the Republican Christopher Shays, to the effect that his ratio of capital to assets (that is, mortgages) of 3 per cent was dangerously low, the Fannie Mae boss retorted that “our assets are so riskless, we could have a capital ratio of under 2 per cent”.

The web site Politico reported this on October 9, 2008 in a story written by Patrick O’Connor & Amie Parnes:

“During a town hall in Wisconsin on Thursday, McCain called Senate Banking Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (Mass.) “willing co-conspirators” in the current financial collapse. ”

“This comes as conservative talk radio hosts and an outside group aligned with the GOP accuse the duo of similar crimes against the economy, particularly an allegation that congressional Democrats blocked legislation to increase regulations and oversight for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

“The fact is that the same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators in causing the problem,” McCain told supporters at a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday. “Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd are two of them.”

Unemployment…..to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic Sub-Prime loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES! Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie – starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy. And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA! And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress.

So when someone tries to blame Bush… REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007…. THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!” Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.

Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets. And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009.

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.

If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is “I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.”

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

“Apparently, I’m supposed to be more angry about what Mitt Romney does with his money than what Barack Obama does with mine.” — Anonymous