Over a year ago, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson refused to push for reforms of fraud-ridden government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae, even though colleagues in the Bush Administration had long been advocating them. Why? Because he thought it would look “political” and offend powerful liberal Senators like Charles Schumer and Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who have long blocked any reform of Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae has long been managed by liberal power brokers, who engaged in a massive accounting scandal. Now, a federal bailout of it is being planned.
A Washington Post editorial today notes that mortgage bailout legislation would perversely give Fannie Mae even more ability to buy up high-risk mortgages in the future. We earlier explained how the bailout legislation, orchestrated by Frank, Schumer, and Dodd, would further destabilize housing markets and reward irresponsible lenders and borrowers, while siphoning taxpayers’ money to left-wing special interest groups like ACORN, which promoted practices like liar loans that helped trigger the mortgage crisis, and which has concealed embezzlement and engaged in voting fraud.
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[...] A $25 billion bailout of government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is now planned. But Fannie Mae has such political power that its crooked managers will probably never be held accountable in any way, unlike the Enron executives who went to jail. Instead, its lending authority will likely expand under federal mortgage bailout bills. [...]
[...] changed course and signed the bailout bill after prodding by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who foolishly went along with liberal Congressmen in downplaying the dangers of government-backed mortga…Â in order to appease [...]
[...] Candida Pugh of Oakland blames the GSEs’ running amok on the “Reagan Revolution.” This is an especially absurd claim, since Reagan Administration officials like Peter Wallison, White House Counsel to President Reagan, have been warning the public for decades about the dangers to taxpayers and our economy of Fannie & Freddie, and the need for reform, while liberal lawmakers have blocked needed reforms of Fannie & Freddie at every turn, while actually expanding its ability to gamble at taxpayer expense. [...]
[...] taxpayer subsidies even before their current bailout), Fannie’s well-paid lobbyists easily defeated those reform proposals by paying off liberal lawmakers and bullying critics. And the Administration did nothing [...]
[...] ended up bailing out mortgage giant Fannie Mae, Paulson claimed it was in good health, and for political reasons, he ignored warnings to the contrary from conservatives. There is no reason why taxpayers should trust him with $700 billion and no strings [...]
[...] to see the mortgage crisis coming it coming, let liberal lawmakers block crucial reforms of Fannie Mae, and has disregarded both logic and history in shaping his bailout plan.  There is no reason [...]