As this financial debacle has unfolded over the past few days, I keep hearing about the controversial group ACORN. I'm no student of economics but I've been trying to read up on some of these issues because I think it's important to be informed. So I decided to read up on ACORN.
ACORN is an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Their official function is to register voters and support housing. They are all-out Democratic supporters yet have been plagued by charges of voter fraud. Ken Blackwell, writing for "National Review" reports that ACORN personnel "are facing criminal charges in over a dozen states."
As it turns out, this is one of the groups that pushed banks into making bad housing loans. This whole process goes back to Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act, which was revived by Clinton. The short version is that this legislation required banks or mortgage lenders to make loans to folks for homes that would not normally be able to afford them; if they failed to do so they would face harsh penalties. ACORN pushed to get these folks into homes that they actually could not afford. Now the irony: this group was set to receive money from the originally proposed Democratic bailout plan. And guess which famous community organizer went to work for ACORN after graduating from Harvard?
Now that Mrs. Pelosi has given her inflamatory, partisan speech before the vote today, the speech in which she blamed Republicans for the whole mess, the bailout vote is once again off the table. But Mrs. Pelosi is wrong in blaming the Republicans wholly for the whole thing. As I've said before, there is plenty of blame to go around but consider this quote from Blackwell's article (and which I have stated here before, as well):
"Republicans have tried to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Republican attempts to reform them in 1999 failed. In 2003, when Alan Greenspan testified about how Fannie and Freddie’s loose practices could endanger our financial system, it was Democrat Barney Frank who said these institutions were fundamentally sound, and should be more aggressive in getting loans to low-income people. In 2005, a Republican reform passed the Senate Banking Committee on a party-line vote, only to be blocked by Democrats from passing the full Senate. And in 2006 when John McCain spoke on the Senate floor of the need to reform Fannie and Freddie immediately, Democrats (including Barack Obama) would not respond."
My bottom line is this: those folks in Washington need to put silly partisan politics behind them and get this mess straightened out. There's lots of time later for the blame-game, but meanwhile, the stock market dropped nearly 800 points today. Quit grandstanding and take care of business!
10 comments:
Can you PLEASE quote from sites that aren't so clearly biased in your favor if you're going to put up so-called "factual" articles. Taken from this site:
National Review and NRO are America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for Republican/conservative news, commentary, and opinion.
It's hard for me to even consider your arguments when you're puling your information from a site that is ONLY conservative and not presenting both sides of the argument. Give me a quote from a credible NEWS source. I guarantee you I can find plenty of articles blaming this whole thing on the Republicans, but OBVIOUSLY it's not ONE party's error. You say let's place blame later and be nonpartisan, but you completely contradict that in your post by finger-pointing with a biased article. You're doing exactly what everyone else in Congress is doing that you're complaining about.
I'm a conservative - I read conservative news. I read other stuff too, but the NR is a reputable magazine founded by Wm. Buckley whom I admired.
The only argument I was making is that ACORN is corrupt (I think that's indisputable) and that they don't deserve to get $$ from the bailout deal.
I think I said that there is plenty of blame to go around; I don't think I blamed the Democrats for the whole thing (unlike Pelosi who DID blame the Republicans).
I stick with my bottom line: fix the mess.
I agree, something needs to get done. But I think it's really silly to hear people imply that all of these Republicans were going to vote for it, but then they got mad at Nancy for being mean and so they didn't do it. That sounds very immature and like another example of people not putting America first. At this point shouldn't this issue be above the words of Mrs. Pelosi or any other one person? I really hope so or we'll never accomplish anything in Washington again. It's ridiculous how we can't get anything done in election years. That sure puts things on hold for a while. I'm really frustrated about this topic. I know we all are.
This piece of legislation was terribly flawed. It just put a band-aid on a gashing, bleeding wound. And had it passed in its present form, we would be visiting it again in a year or two.
It needs to go in and remove the federal government from the loan industry and shut down Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I'm sorry, if you can't afford to buy a house, you shouldn't. Where is the common sense when you threaten to put sanctions against lending institutions who don't lend to people who don't have the means to pay back the loan?
This legislation, The Community Development Act 1974, was made law under the Carter Administration, and strenghtened under the Clinton Admninistration.
My beef with the Republicans is this, when they had the majority in both houses and the White House, why didn't they deal with it then?
To say that the Republicans got their feelings hurt over Nancy Pelosi's words is ridiculous. Can someone explain how a party in congress with a clear majority, and the backing of the White House, couldn't pass this legislation?
Why did the Democrats say they had a deal struck, when they clearly didn't?
Why did 95 Democrats, 11 or 12 of them who are members of the House Finance Committee didn't vote for the bill? (The Democrats control congress and when a bill gets voted on, and if they do or do not have enough votes to pass a bill. Don't tell me they didn't know they didn't have enough votes to pass this bill, they knew they didn't, and this was an opportunity to make political hay.)
I believe that a lot of Democrats and Republicans realized this bill flawed, it didnt correct the problem, and they heard from the people back home.
Thank God for honest men like Democratic Congressman from Mississippi Gene Taylor who told the Sun-Herald:
“If there was a button that said ‘Hell, no,’ I’d push it,” said U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, just before joining a majority of House Republicans and a large number of Democrats in defeating the $700 billion bailout bill by 228-205.
“I hate to use a cliché, but this falls into the category of throwing money at a problem and hope it works,” Taylor said in an interview.
Why don't they want to have an investigation concerning criminal activities as to why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed? They always want to investigate everything else, steriods in baseball comes to mind, or if some Republican Senator puts his foot into the next stall.
Is it because someone with close ties to the Democrats, and some Republicans, had their hands in the cookie jar and certain politicians benefited from this debacle?
What I am trying to say here is there is enough blame to go around, and to have Nancy Pelosi to politize this situation and lay the total blame at the feet of the Republicans is purely irresponsible.
What angers me even more, and I think senators and congressmen have forgotten that there are people who studied political science and civics still around, when someone from congress gets on tv and makes a totally false statement as to how the system works, then has the nerve to tell the person who corrects them, "Well, you just don't see the big picture."
OK explain to me the big picture. They can't do it.
I can see exactly why this didn't pass. There is so much anger towards other citizens for sharing their opinions, and so I can only imagine how uncivilized it must be in Washington. I do sincerely hope it had nothing to do with Pelosi's statement. I was actually making that very point in response to the original post. Maybe you missed this statement:
"Now that Mrs. Pelosi has given her inflamatory, partisan speech before the vote today, the speech in which she blamed Republicans for the whole mess, the bailout vote is once again off the table. "
What's truly ridiculous (to use your word) is this question:
"Can someone explain how a party in congress with a clear majority, and the backing of the White House, couldn't pass this legislation?"
I'll do the honors of explaining. First let's recall that it was a bipartisan committee, led by Senator John McCain, that didn't get the job done. Remember that whole flying off to Washington thing? Or did the bailout really have nothing to do with that? I'm not sure.
Also, you imply that the Democrats failed EVEN with the backing of the White House. I assume by the White House, you're referring to our Republican President, George W. Bush. I do remember seeing Mr. President speaking on prime time television to tell us how important this legislation was. How did this happen?
Well, you may not have heard but Democrats did, in fact, deliver the votes they promised and the Republican side fell far short. It appears that McCain has about as much influence with Republicans in Congress as George Bush. I imagine it has plenty to do with the lack of judgement he has displayed in his campaign thus far. It's too bad he spent a whole day "suspending" his campaign to get absolutely nothing accomplished. I'm not surprised but I am very disappointed.
I am not arguing that the bailout is well drafted or not, but with the party leadership from both sides very intimately involved I know that I don't feel like I am in a position to question the content at this point. I'm sure all points have been thoroughly debated. I am more concerned that SOMETHING get done ASAP. I've heard plenty of people on both sides of the aisle talking about the downside of putting nothing in place or in taking too long to make a decision. It needs to be resolved.
I'm guessing that even if John McCain wasn't leading or influential in this committee, his very political move of halting his campaign and "rushing" off to Washington to interject himself into the middle of it all probably is as much to blame for the failure as Mrs. Pelosi's statements. Although I would prefer to believe that our legislators voted the way they did because of their constituents. I assume it has more to do with political grandstanding than anything. Still, any citizens who called their congressman to protest the bailout should now consider changing their tune. What choice do we really have?
I worked with ACORN directly for two years - as well as had weekly one on one meetings with Sr. Dodd in Congress in my work as a regulatory research paralegal working the congressional complaints at Countrywide. It's really allowed me some insight into all of this. I will agree 100% that ACORN and many like it pressured the hell out of companies to make loan modifications that were band aids and not solutions - without a doubt. But in the end - you must blame the folks who signed on the dotted line, the keep up with the jones' culture, more than anyone does.
I think plenty blame the Republicans b/c a) it's under their overall leadership (b/c we did indeed have a Democratic Congress) that this has developed and the largest source of it was insufficient regulation until GASP - something happens and they try to bully companies into fixing it for the folks on "main" street and then GASP the banks now fail due to the crush of mortgage backed securities so now they bully them into fixing it and well - some things only get fixed by letting it pan out. You can't bail out all the people that over mortgaged themselves nor can you bail out the greedy companies that double loaned up on mortgage backed securities. No one will admit that it's going to be bad and ugly but it will heal - fix it to the extent you must keep it moving but no way can you ever deregulate again - the business world proved that greed is too great to leave them out there on their own.
And ironic the Republicans voted more against the bailout but you want to blame Pelosi. Keep listening to right wing radio - you'll always have ammunition for your blog that way. ;)
1. I don't get "ammunition" for my blog from right wing radio. I work during the day, take care of my mom in the afternoon and my house in the evening and don't listen to right wing radio.
2. If you read my original post correctly, I did not blame Pelosi for the vote but I said her speech was inflamatory. I don't think I'm alone on that opinion.
3. Insufficient regulation by the Republicans was in part because the Democrats voted down any regulation that was proposed in 1999, 2003 and 2005. As I said, plenty of blame to go around.
agreed - but you do sound a lot like right wing radio ;)
sorry if i get inflamatory - i get riled up after my last years working my ass off to satisfy regulators
the Democrats control the House, and Senate, the Democrats control the Senate Banking, Finance, housing and Urban developement committiee. and Chris Dodd is the Chair person , yet Not one Media type has asked ole Chris how his committee who has oversite didnt see this coming, not a ONE!, and that because the media isnt going to do a thing to hurt obamas chances at winning, and with the aid of Acorn, Steal this election, what should anger many of you is the fact that anyone undermining this system of ours hurts us all, and No way in HELL does the ends ever justify the means. the Acorn personel should be jailed and anyone attempting to mess with our system should spend the rest of their natural lives eating balogna, and applesause. this is an outrage, the Acorn group tried this in 2000 and they will keep going till they are stopped
Pandering to the Minorities has gotten us this mess, giving people who cant figure out the loans they just signed for are balloon notes, and other insane mortgage pratices is just the tip of the Iceberg here, the Democrats last election campaigned they woiuld "end" deficit spending, well I am just a transplanted country boy from Oklahoma, but the 612 billion passed a few weeks ago, plus the 850billion passed this week is just shy of $1.5 Trillion dollars, that this country has to print, meaning all the money I have is now worth less than it was last year, and the people responsible wont get touched by all this, unless the American Tax Payer wakes up, and boots everyone in Washington out, and let them find new employment, this economic drama began in the Clinton years, the facts show it. the democrats had 2 years to figure this out, truth is, they all knew it was coming, but do they care ?, no, it's Your money they squander, not theirs, they just give themselves a raise when they need.
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