Posted on 01/18/2009 8:57:44 AM PST by Sub-Driver
When the draft is back, all those young airheads that are swooning over Obama will be going in. I wonder what they will think about him then??
Excuses? I am not making ‘excuses’ for this because there are not enough facts in the article to even know what the hold up was or whether it was an over-sight. What I was saying was that the republicans did not have a filibuster proof majority the whole time Bush was in office. Those are the facts, whether you like them or not doesn’t matter.
Not to worry. Charles Rangel has his job creation bill all set with the new draft. The paper tiger will be a wuz.
Thank you for serving.
Go back to Dim U
I used to make this argument, too. But I'm coming to realize what it is: an excuse. An excuse for not taking action.
The GOP majority never found a way to assert itself over the Democrat minority. But do you have any doubt that the Democrat majority will find a way to prevail over the GOP minority?
Fact is, the GOP majority and its leadership were a.) too comfortable in their positions, b.) unwilling to pursue difficult tasks and c.) only too willing to pursue their own re-elections via pork.
Take, for example, the Fannie & Freddie sub-prime mortgage crisis. It now appears evident that everybody in the party could see the looming disaster on the horizon. Bush asked for reform at least five times. Republicans finally pushed the Federal Enterprise Regulatory Housing Reform Act of 2005, co-sponsored by McCain, to the floor.
In his speech supporting it, McCain predicted pretty much exactly what happened with Fannie & Freddie...and, as a consequence, the entire economy.
Net:net is that the GOP knew the danger the country was in. But, when the Democrats threatened a filibuster, they folded-up like a cheap cardboard box...and went on about "business as usual".
They put up no fight...when America was on the line...and they knew it. No retaliation against the Democrats, no discipline of the Republican lawmakers who tacitly sided with the corruption that was going on. No speeches. No ultimatums. Just silence.
Knowing what we know now, the GOP not only could've -- but should've -- made a cause celebre out of this issue. They chose instead to retreat from the field.
This was a clear failure of leadership.
Of all the crappy, mindless, throw-away cliches that have infected our language, “calls it quits” is one of those that offends me most. It trivializes not just the event itself, but by extension all the accomplishments of the subject. /rant
President Bush knows how petty the dems and the media are, believe me. He just didn’t fight back the way he should have. That’s my biggest beef with the man. The dems have been in control since 2006 and our economy is now in the tank!
Although off-topic...Here are some new talking points for you:
The following is a condensation of a series from the Investor’s Business Daily explaining ‘What Caused the Loan Crisis’:
1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.
Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.
How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?
Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.
1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IA) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few.
1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.
1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.
1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin’s Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robt. Rubin’s Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.
1997 - 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.
With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often ‘no doc’, ‘no income’, requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990’s Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as musch as $182 Billion, most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.
Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.
1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie’s excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. ‘We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks,’ Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.
2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the ‘special status’. Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO’s who knew how to reward and punish. ‘We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation’s housing and mortgage markets’ Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.
2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen.Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.
2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called ‘the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago’. Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.
2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: ‘We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk’. Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, ‘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’. Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to ‘cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding homeownership’ The bill went nowhere.
2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in ‘07, subprime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making.
2008: Bush urged reform 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats’ talking points about this being a ‘Republican’ disaster. A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats.
Let’s get these ‘talking points’ moving over the internet again.
Wouldnt that be Ironic, dontcha think?
“Knowing what we know now, the GOP not only could’ve — but should’ve — made a cause celebre out of this issue. They chose instead to retreat from the field.
This was a clear failure of leadership.”
You will get no argument from me on that assessment although the house republicans did show more leadership (Mike Pence and others) on this issue and drilling, than our Senate ‘leaders’ ever did and for that I give them some credit where credit is due.
I hate to pick a nit, but it's not a 747-400, it's a 747-200.
I'm surprised Obambi didn't make him fly home on a commercial flight.....
The weakness of the GOP is just as dangerous to the USA as the strength of the democrats.
They roll over and show their bellies when ever anything important come up.
Most non-democrats fail to realize that very important point ... a weak minority opposition is as dangerous as an overreaching majority. When you see Juan McCaina nd Lindsey Gramnesty leading the minority opposition, the future is very bleak indeed!
The last straw was putting twenties on AF One as well as the requirement to get a diamond in his front tooth.
Thank you for your service and your sacrifice and your bravery.
Seriously.
Thanks for flying our president safely, Col. Tilman.
I remember Clinton actually giving another farewell speech when leaving at Andrews. It was completely inappropriate.
Here is what Present Obama had to say about him:
"You're exactly what I would want the pilot of Air Force One to look like … right out of central casting," Obama says candidly. "You look like you know how to fly … like Sam Shepard in 'The Right Stuff.'"This shows how Present Obama will govern this nation. Style over substance.
Here is a Video of the plane and pilot Present Obama wanted.
Notice the plane is wearing Mrs. Michelle Obama's Barney dress.
In the spirit of diversity and in keeping with the sense of Obama’s election, it should be a Black Pilot recently graduated from Flight School.
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