Posted on 01/24/2012 7:19:11 PM PST by TBBT
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich began receiving payments from Freddie Mac in 1999 under a contract that paid his consulting business $25,000 a month to work with the mortgage giant's chief lobbyist, according to a second agreement released Tuesday night. The contract specifically excluded lobbying services, stating "nothing herein is or shall be construed as an agreement to provide lobbying services of any kind or engage in lobbying activities." The Center for Health Transformation, founded by Gingrich, provided the second contract a day after releasing a 2006 agreement for Gingrich's services. The two contracts paid Gingrich's consulting business just over $1.6 million and required Gingrich to report to Freddie Mac's lobbying office. The 1999 contract was renewed through 2002, and the 2006 contract was renewed for one year in 2007, said Susan Meyers, a spokeswoman for the Center for Health Transformation. Gingrich's work with Freddie Mac has received renewed scrutiny as GOP rival Mitt Romney has criticized the arrangements as influence peddling by the former House speaker. Gingrich has blasted Romney, saying he has mischaracterized his work in a desperate attempt to regain momentum in the Republican presidential race. Romney has pressed Gingrich to release details of his work for Freddie Mac, including any work product or reports completed for the company that would show exactly what type of services he provided. Gingrich urged the consulting company he left last year to release the contracts, but no other materials have been released.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadianbusiness.com ...
Romney is attacking capitalism.
Romney Epic Fail...
Top Romney advisers lobbied for Freddie Mac
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/25/top-romney-advisers-lobbied-for-freddie/
Neither here nor there to the point that Gingrich was opposing a GOP President’s reform of the GSEs. That’s an indefensible position for a conservative.
I forgot. ;)
[But it wasn’t CALLED lobbying!]
I actually started the primary season — so WAAYYY back then — incined toward Gingrich, and said so.
Of course, I had lived through his Speakership, but all I knew about what he had been up to in the interim was what I gleaned from occasionally catching him on Hannity or similar. He sounded great and I was more than willing to be open to his candidacy.
Then, like most conservatives, I remembered why he was a GOP outcast, for all practical purposes, when he inexpicably went on tv and called Paul Ryan’s plan “right-wing social engineering,” etc. This was at the absolute WORST time, just when that discussion was getting some traction. And Gingrich killed it.
His candidacy in the toilet at this point, I stopped paying attention to him, except for flakking for him as a good Vice President to someone who actually did get the Tea Party movement in his heart, not just as an intellectual exercise.
When Cain dropped out and people were looking around for the last not-Romney, I really started exploring Gingrich’s record. I was disturbed at the pattern I saw.
It’s not just his decades-long devotion to the individual mandate, there’s are many other things that are simply inexplicable from a person who is supposed to not only be an “intellectual conservative” (as Gingrich aptly described himself), but someone with conservative political instincts.
Will I vote for him if he gets the nomination? Yes. In the primary, I don’t know (but it won’t affect the outcome anyway).
However, I continue to voice my concern, even though that offends some freepers who think we should be all in for Gingrich at this point. I would want him to know that we’re on to his schtick, and if he tries that crap in the future, we’re watching.
Problem is it takes more than a few conservatives to hold this man accountable.
Interesting, today there was a link on Drudge to a story that 33% of GOP voters want “someone else.” That is not a good thing at this point for the Gingrich campaign. He ticks people off so easily as it is; I can see his “support” going back in the toilet about three days after he gets into the Oval Office.
I hope I’m wrong.
“Neither here nor there to the point that Gingrich was opposing a GOP President’s reform of the GSEs. That’s an indefensible position for a conservative.”
Do you know that that is what Gingrich was doing? So far I haven’t seen any explanation of just what it was he did.
Gingrich’s contract with Freddie began in 1999 which is before Dubya took office.
Basically everybody is working for Fannie and Freddie.
My mortgage was bought by Freddie right after I refinanced. At least they are holding one good note.
Next week it will be who worked for Chase, Lehman Bros., etc.
Gingrich could well have been one of the unnamed “supporters” who defeated the effort for more oversight of the GSEs:
“At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve. Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.”
The article is one you would be interested in:
Bush, McCain Tried To Reform Freddie Mac
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/bush-mccain-tried-to-reform-housing-finance
What is wrong with being hired to develop an argument or a marketing plan? Keep in mind there isn’t one company in the country who doesn’t lobby on their own behalf in some form. It’s everyone’s free speech right to ask for anything. It’s up to the elected politicians to take responsibility for what they agree to do.
Newt has said in the debates he is for the GSE model in some cases. He said in the last one that it worked well for Fannie and Freddie for decades before changes were made. If you disagree, that’s fine, but there is nothing inconsistent here between his positions and his private-sector work for the companies.
Obviously the model existed for decades and only caused a problem in recent years. So the story is more about what was changed with these institutions that may have contributed to the bubble than the mere fact of their existence. Without seeing the specifics of Newt’s argument, we have no idea whether it would have been arguing for changes that would have prevented the crisis, made it worse, or been neutral. There’s no “there” there at this point.
And, no, none of Newt’s supporters are arguing that he is some magic swami who was right 100% of the time and never supported a bad policy. We’re just saying he’s been right on some very big things more often than Santorum or (*choke* *sputter* *chortle*) Romney. And he has a track record of getting things done while he was in Congress, not just talking about things like Ron Paul.
Absolutely we will need to hold any President’s feet to the fire. Newt is obviously the best choice even if just for that reason, since he will have to be on his best behavior all the time, with the entire establishment out to pounce on him for any mistake he might make.
And let's not forget that it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is!
But let's just focus on the legal definition of "lobbyist." And if Gingrich didn't meet that, then regardless that he was hired by Freddie Mac to " to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it, " since he didn't register as a lobbyist, he wasn't peddling his influence.
Just like he wasn't peddling his influence when he created the FOR-PROFIT Center for Health Transformation, dedicated to imposing an INDIVIDUAL MANDATE, and he charged up to $200,000 a year for Big Pharma and Big Insurance companies to access to him.
Some may console themselves with the fact that Gingrich was never a registered lobbyist, but that's beside the point of WHAT he was supporting and HOW.
It's completely myopic to argue "Newt wasn't a registered lobbyist, THEREFORE there's nothing to see here, move along."
There is no excuse for any conservative to have anything to do with supporting Freddie Mac against his own party's efforts to regulate it. And I don't trust a man who has literally devoted his life to the individual healthcare mandate when he says, all of a sudden, that he'll repeal Obamacare, well, most of it."
Look, if you don't have any concerns about Gingrich's Freddie Mac dealings, or his dealings with the health insurance industry and his decades-long advocacy of an individual mandate, then we disagree.
But please don't post to me obvious crap about the legal definition of a lobbyist -- which I had already specifically said Gingrich was not a registered lobbyist, therefore he did not meet the legal definition of a lobbyist -- DUH -- then imply that since Gingrich didn't meet the legal definition of a lobbyist, his conduct was not and could not have been questionable from a conservative point-of-view.
Thanks.
The fact that Romney is desperate is irrelevant to whether or not one finds Gingrich's support of Freddie Mac (and climate change, and his Education Tour with Al Sharpton, and the individual mandate, etc.) a matter for pause.
For Freddie Mac?
At a time when the Bush administration was trying, against much Democrat opposition, to strengthen regulation of these sinkholes?
And an "argument or a marketing plan" PITCHED TO REPUBLICANS ON CAPITOL HILL?
Sorry for shouting, but really, this is the key here.
All in all, this just shows poor political judgment, in my view.
Might we have to live with this type of mentality in the White House? It looks like we might. But that's no excuse for glossing over the glaring lack of conservative political instincts that have characterized Newt over the years.
Thanks for the link.
I'm not suggesting that we can't "work" with a President Gingrich. But acting as though he's God's gift to conservatism is going to lead to a whole lot of trouble.
If/since he's all we've got, better to accept the reality of who Newt is NOW.
I posted a link to you that answers this. Of course, if you are willing to take John Sununu’s word for it, which I imagine most Newt supporters are not.
Also, I recall listening carefully to Newt’s answers when this was brought up at the debates and in interviews and it seemed to me that he never denied, and in fact at some points admitted, that he was against the reforms pushed by most conservatives, including the Bush administration, re the GSEs.
Seemed to me it was typical Newt — all about how he had a better idea on how to do Freddie and Fannie that would fulfill their [Liberal] vision better and, therefore, conservatives were wrong to see these organizations as money-sucking relics of FDR’s socialism.
I stated the above in my last post to you, and just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't directing that specifically at you. Just a general statement about people's tendency to dismiss-without-consideration any "negative" information about their candidate.
On the larger point of whether Gingrich worked against the Bush administration reform efforts, besides the link I previously posted to you, this article I just saw on Drudge is pretty damning, in my view.
Gingrich's 1986 floor statement -- which was indisputably made by him on the floor of this Nation's Congress -- is inexplicable. It sounds just like Harry Reid.
“Of course, if you are willing to take John Sununu’s word for it, which I imagine most Newt supporters are not.”
I have no illusions about Newt and have often warned people that he has a history of betraying his conservative supporters. But he’s a fighter, I’ll give him that.
That said, Sununu’s article in the Boston Globe doesn’t contain one bit of evidence concerning what Newt did for Freddie Mac. Sununu has the same amount of direct information that I have, a wild ass guess. I mean I have my own suspicion that Newt was being paid to influence Republican congressmen, why else would they hire him? But my suspicion isn’t evidence, and neither is Sununu’s.
“he was against the reforms pushed by most conservatives, including the Bush administration, re the GSEs.”
I would never, ever accuse Dubya of being a conservative, even when it has the qualifier “compassionate” appended to it. Dubya is an old fashioned big business Republican, sold to conservatives under a masterful campaign of false advertising.
” all about how he had a better idea on how to do Freddie and Fannie that would fulfill their [Liberal] vision better and, therefore, conservatives were wrong to see these organizations as money-sucking relics of FDR’s socialism.”
Your characterization of F&F sounds a bit like something Glenn Beck would cook up on a bender. A bit too eager to find socialism lurking everywhere.
For one thing Freddie didn’t exist until 1970. Fannie was created in 1936 because you couldn’t get a mortgage for more than three years, at the end of which you had to roll it into a new one. If you couldn’t find a bank able to make a new loan you could lose your house even if you had made every single payment on time.
Fannie provided a service to the banking community that was useful but which no private firm had filled. Fannie would purchase conforming mortgages from banks, providing those banks with liquidity to make new loans. Fannie would then sell bundles of mortgages to large investors who were looking for paper yielding a reliable and consistent return, freeing its own assets to purchase new mortgages.
Fannie also provided a service to home buyers. The rules it set resulted in a standardized mortgage that borrowers rarely defaulted on. The reliable payment stream from these borrowers encouraged lenders to lend long and a 30 year loan was now available. It was a beneficial service to both borrower and lender.
This all worked well in a remarkably boring fashion for many decades. Had only F&F’s dull conforming loans been available the housing cycle would have petered out in 2003. But they weren’t the only loans available, and just when housing should have turned down we had the arrival of exotic loans from Wall Street firms looking for a way to farm the subprime lending market. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but unfortunately they also made a few errors when it came to calculating the risks involved in their exciting new ideas about lending.
Newt comments today are nothing like 3 years ago. Today his comments is like music to the ears of conservatives. I ask myself, how can he have such a profound change. He can't... if he is true, honorable and trustworthy. Newt is a typical politician with lips moving in all directions. Sad we can't get better candidates.
I remember Freepers brag voting for Obama in the primary just so Hillary fails. Hillary would have been better than a community organizer. If Newt becomes President, Freepers will be wining about Newt in short order.
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