Barney Frank's Fannie and Freddie Racism Regarding the Financial Crisis
Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is doing his best to outshine Joe Biden in the silly comments department. As the Associated Press reports:
Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attacked on the poor that's racially motivated....
"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said to a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."
Frank's comments are in response to widespread criticism of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-backed mortgage-bundling giants that played fast and loose with both risk and their bookkeeping.
Among serious people, there's little doubt that the policies and ultimate collapse of Fannie and Freddie were a leading cause of the current crisis. Indeed, that's why Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday specifically called them out at "cases in point." As he said, "The Federal Reserve had long warned about the systemic risks posed by these companies' large portfolios of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, as well as the problems arising from the conflict between shareholders' objectives and the government's goals for the two firms."
As Bernanke's comments illustrate, Fannie-Freddie criticism is hardly the special provenance of Republicans. Feckless lawmakers of both parties have a lot to answer for in failing to rein in the siblings. But chief among those lawmakers is Barney Frank, who kicked hardest against prescient reform efforts and pushed hardest in expanding Fannie and Freddie's risk-taking. (See here for more.)
But, suddenly, to criticize his poor judgment amounts to racism?
Frank's argument is as tacky as it gets, and it's yet another measure of what a political buffoon he is. But if Frank insists on finding a racist angle to the catastrophe, he might reflect that it was his own actions that drove poor, black homeowners to financial ruin. And it is the lawmaker's critics who now vow not to let it happen again.
Tags: race | Barney Frank | Fannie Mae | Freddie Mac | racism
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Reader Comments
Lying traitors blame Brany Frank
Lying about something this serious is treason.
So its not racism to say that blacks demanded mortgages that they didn’t have to pay back?
The lie is that Barney Frank forced mortgage companies to give mortgages to blacks who were not expected to pay back the mortgages.
Let me expose the traitors who blame Barney Frank. He tried to reign in the mortgage companies but the Republicans blocked him.
NJ: Any other Democrats?
Griffith: Well, [Rep.] Barney Frank [of Massachusetts]. The Senate Banking Committee produced a very good bill in 2004. It was S. 190 and never got to the Senate floor. Then the House introduced a bill, which it passed, but we couldn't get a bill to the floor of the Senate. Then after the 2006 election when everyone thought FM Policy Focus's issues would be tough sledding with Democrats in the majority, Barney Frank, as the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, stepped up and said, "I am convinced we need to do something." He sat down with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and frankly upset people in the Senate and Republicans in the House. But they came up with a bill that was excellent, and it was the bill that largely became law.
LIES
If Barney Frank wasn't so interested In his boy friend at F&F maybe he would have done his job better and we would not be in the mess were In. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Palossi, Obama should be taken out of the Senate. Chris Dodd, Obama should be made to give back any monies they have taken from F&F and to appoligze to the American people and should be impeached. The democrats need only to look in their back yards for this financial problem.
Frightened American
I am a large man that grew up on the street and have always been able to defend myself and my loved ones. In my 55 years of life I have not been so frightened as I am now since my time as a young boy when I was required to practice hiding under my desk at school in peparation for some type of nuclear attack. I am so angry at the politicians, myself and my fellow Americans for allowing these pinheads to run our country into the ground. I believe in fairness and justice for all men. However, I refuse to allow myself to be treated unfairly and unjustly to fulfill someone elses definition of what is just and fair for others. It is my belief that no matter who wins the election we are in for a world of hurt. Until all of us quit speaking and writing about how angry we are and take action to take back our country from all of the attorneys in Washington things will never change.
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