Blame Barney Frank for the "Great" Recession, Not George Bush

from YID With LID by Jeff Dunetz


Blame Barney Frank for the "Great" Recession, Not George Bush: "

The progressive Democrats in power must believe that the citizens of this country are absolute morons, either that or they haven’t read a newspaper in two years and don’t realize that George Bush is no longer president. The Democratic party plans on retaining their change message for their 2010. Their new tag line is “vote for us, or its back to the bad old economic policies of George Bush. That’s right Barack Obama and his progressive majority are going to campaign as if they were all still in kindergarten “Its not my fault….blame Bush.”

Not only is that approach childish, but it belies the truth. Allow me to suggest that the policies of Barney Frank had more to do with the bursting of the housing bubble, the resulting bank crisis and the “great recession,” than the policies of George Bush. Led by Frank the Democratic party brought down the banking industry by forcing banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them, then he blunted the Republican attempts to regulate the industry

Frank aggressively fought reform efforts by the Bush administration. He told The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems were “exaggerated.” Exaggerated? Thanks to Fannie and Freddie the housing market collapsed and we fell into this “great recession.”

“These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” Frank Opined to the Times. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

The 10/8/03 Washington Post reported that Frank opposed giving the Bush administration the approval rights over banking business activities that “could pose risk to the taxpayers.” He worried the Treasury Department “would sacrifice activities that are good for consumers in the name of lowering the companies’ market risks.”

In the video below Frank sits in a 9/10/03 House Financial Services Committee hearing and says Fannie and Freddie are sound, and there is no housing disaster coming.

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): I worry, frankly, that there’s a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, 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 and withstand some of the disaster scenarios.

Two years later the United States was much closer to the bursting on the housing bubble. The Republicans in Congress introduced a bill to regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Led by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd the bill was killed.

On June 27, 2005 Barney Frank stood up on the floor of the House of Representatives and told America that there is undue concern about the housing market and even though prices were growing very quickly the housing market is not like the Dot.Com industry, the housing bubble will not burst.

If the Guinness Book of World records had a hypocrisy category, the winner would be Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Banking Committee. Let me revise that, Frank wouldn’t be the winner, judging by his actions the Guinness people would have to retire the category.

When the housing bubble finally burst Mr. Frank called for prosecution of the people who caused the banking crisis, he should have looked in the mirror.

Barney Frank got away with his housing bubble hypocrisy and is still getting away with it. Fannie and Freddie are still asking the public for money, the economy is still in the toilet and the Democratic Party is still blaming President Bush.

While there were plenty of problems with George Bush’s policies, this recession has more to do with the policies of the progressive Democrats, than those of the former president. In fact, if the POTUS and his progressive lemmings were to be truthful, they should be blaming Barney Frank because when you examine what happened Frank is the one blocked the regulation of Fannie and Freddie and it was Frank who kept saying over and over there is no housing crisis.

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