Posted on 10/08/2008 7:47:52 PM PDT by markomalley
Congress may not be in session, but that hasn't stopped Democratic leaders from convening hearings that highlight a staggering economy that is expected to pay dividends for them in the November elections.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held two hearings this week intended to investigate the "causes and effects" of the financial crisis on Wall Street and has scheduled three more hearings leading up to Election Day.
But Republicans are angered that mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose questionable lending practices led to a government bailout last month, aren't even being addressed.
The two companies guarantee or own millions of mortgages issued to low-income families — a key Democratic voting bloc.
"If Congress chooses to selectively examine the causes of this crisis by excluding the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played, then this week´s hearings will not be viewed as a serious effort, but rather a political charade," said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican.
This week, Mr. Waxman chose to hold hearings on the failures of insurance giant American International Group (AIG) and Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
You're wrong, Ms. Ferrier. The sheeple will believe every word breathlessly uttered by CBSNBCABCCNNNYTWAPO. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
i was looking at a pic of u.s. rep waxman today in the paper,
and i was wondering,
where was rep waxman in regulating these corporations?
why trust his inquisition now?
What good came of the oil-baron investigations? What good ever came from a committee hearing? I’d like to see one Wall Street-er show the courage of Ollie North or Howard Hughes in The Aviator.
“What about you, Senator? What about your greed? How much money went into your reelection coffers by letting Fanny and Freddy leverage beyond their capital? How many people voted for you because yoiu promised them cheap credit?”
Personally, I’d find it hard to restrain myself from leaping over the table and beating politicians over the head with their own culpability.
Democrats have begun a search for the culprit in the financial collapse in a manner somewhat akin to the OJ Simpson search for Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman’s murderer. The Hill reports that Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee hearing grilled Lehman Brothers executives over CEO pay and “deregulation”, but never mentioned the names Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Republicans found that more than a little strange:
Democrats aimed their harshest attacks at deregulation and CEO pay, using former Lehman Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld as an example during a recess hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) also released internal documents showing Lehman’s compensation committee recommended $20 million in “special payments” to three departing executives on Sept. 11, four days before the firm filed for bankruptcy.
Republicans, for their part, launched a campaign to pin the financial meltdown on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and attacked Waxman for not holding a hearing to dig into the now-nationalized mortgage giants.
“Any hearing on oversight that does not begin with Fannie and Freddie and [former Fannie Mae CEO] Franklin Raines will be a sham,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.). “This is like investigating a train robbery and only talking to the dining car stewards.”
Christopher Shays ripped the Oversight Committee for its refusal to investigate Congress itself:
“The reason we haven’t scheduled hearings on these two institutions and haven’t requested documents from either is because their demise isn’t someone else’s fault — it’s ours, and we don’t want to own up to it.”
Shays then destroys the notion that Congress got caught unaware by the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He requests the records of many hearings held over the last six years on this very topic, including a Bush administration effort to overhaul GSE regulation in 2003. The list of hearings demonstrates Congressional culpability in the Fannie and Freddie collapse, and as Shays notes, provides the reason why Waxman has kept the actual proximate cause of the financial crisis out of the hearings that are supposed to investigate the reasons why American taxpayers have to bail out Wall Street.
Note that Waxman wants to save “taxpayer money” by keeping those records out of the committee hearing, instead providing links to the records for those who want to pursue the trail of bread crumbs highlighted by Shays. Too bad Congressional Democrats didn’t have more concern for our money when they blocked tougher rules for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and accused OFHEO regulators of being racists for doing their jobs. That was their excuse the last time Congress got pressed to take some responsibility for overseeing the GSEs, and to no one’s great surprise, that’s their reaction this time as well.
It does not matter if the person is a business executive or a politican. Lock them us and fine them into bankrupticy. Even if they “happen to be a presidential candidate” they should pay the price. This is enough.
it’s disgusting to look at evil.
they pretend to be defending americans from evil capitalism,
but they’re the ones responsible for not regulating finance.
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