Home > Opinion > Sam Dealey > Responding Frank-ly—I Fire Back on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Responding Frank-ly—I Fire Back on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

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Sam:
Enough has been said lately about Frank and his cohorts. I won't belabor the subject since I would place myself in jeopardy of having another heart attack with the rage that I would vent. I read a couple of your articles lately. I have recently bemoaned to my wife that there isn't any true journalist left. It seems that everyone has their own agenda when speaking about an issue. Thank you for proving me wrong. You must have been a fan of the old Dragnet series because you base your writing on just the facts.
Let them squirm, Sam. Let them squirm.

Stan Grainger of PA 9:25AM October 01, 2008

Great reporting, Sam. People in trouble tend to try to change the subjest, displace blame and spin things in other directions to get the pressure off of themselves. You did a great job keeping things in line in this article and keeping the important questions front and center. There's nowhere to run, Barney. Time to face the music.

CDON of IL 4:58PM September 30, 2008

Thank you for this article. I personally hold two people responsible for this disaster, Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank for stopping all real regulations on Fannie and Freddie. These two facilitated a philosophy that in the end promoted poor risk assessment loans and tempted the greedy. If Freddie and Fannie were regulated, most of these bad loans that were repackaged by them and resold to financial organizations would not have happened.

wwb of CA 12:42PM September 29, 2008

I love how everyone is sooooo concerned about who voted for what and who said whatever in the past. Nobody seems to care about what is going on now. I mean these high level accountants and CEO's and CFO's and all the the people that were part of these predatory lending practices worked hard to disguise what was going on and they paid large sums of money to make sure congressmen looked the other way. These guys are at risk to lose their bonus and severence packages for all their hard work and nobody seems to care. What if they have to give up their Jaguars and million dollar homes?

Michael of KY 8:39PM September 25, 2008

So republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and yet somehow, Barney Frank was able to derail regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? All by his lonesome? I wasn't aware that minority members of congress were granted veto power. The author never explicitly states this, but certainly implies it.
Note to Michael Curr - If you look at a timeline of housing prices and sub-prime loans originated, you'll clearly see that this was a post-2000 bubble. Go ahead and blame Clinton for the internet bubble, but the housing bubble belongs to Bush and the republican congress.

Alan Bol of CO 12:24PM September 25, 2008

Wouldn't it be far more interesting, and telling, to see "in depth articles" about how many FANNIE lobbyists, who were paid not thousands, but millions to avoid regulation for Fannie Mae, actually work, currently, for self-dsecribed "Mr. Anti-Regulation" John McCain?
Just a thought.

rob lewis of CA 2:47AM September 25, 2008

GREAT JOB SAM!
Voting Recrods can be found here:
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Campaign contributions can be found here:
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Not surprising...
Karl

Karl of NY 6:23PM September 22, 2008

Sam:
In reading your articles, it is quite obvious that Barney Franks & company(Liberal Congress)are trying to shift the blame from those who were top executives of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac to Senator Mccain's lobbyists-most of whom worked for lobbying agencis and not directly for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.
The truth is that Barney Franks and Nancy Pelosi did all they could to prevent any kind of regulation to Fannie May/Freddie Mac,despite warnings both in 2003 and in 2005 of financial impropriety and overextension of mortgage credit that suggested the mortgage giants where in over their heads.All this was done for cultural diversification,reguardless of whether anyone qualified.(CRA Act which forced banks to lower loan qualifications or loose business and credibility- passed under former President Clinton's administration)
We need to fix the problem,but we also need to be mindful of the truth.

Vincent J Becchino of NJ 11:25AM September 22, 2008

Forget about campaign donations, I want to see who voted against the bills in 2003 and 2005. Pretty sure there will be a large number of Republicans (since it was a Republican controlled Congress) and Democrats voting against that oversight. These are the people who should be blamed.

of NJ 12:26AM September 18, 2008

I'd be interested to see an in depth article on members of the Senate and Congress who received campaign donations from Freddie Mac / Fannie Mae. A recent report I saw on CNN indicated that: Christopher Dodd(D), John Kerry (D), Hillary Clinton (D), Barrack Obama (D) were in the top five receiving large donations.

of OH 11:04AM September 15, 2008