Matt Molnar
2008-09-22, 02:18 PM
After an urgent warning from Alan Greenspan in 2005...
...for the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.
If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.
But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue.
...
Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... KSoiNbnQY0 (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0)
Note: This piece is written by a McCain adviser, and McCain was a co-sponsor of the reform bill in question. Regardless, it raises some serious questions for the Dems and Obama, who have been quick to blame this on Bush and the GOP.
...for the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.
If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.
But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue.
...
Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... KSoiNbnQY0 (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0)
Note: This piece is written by a McCain adviser, and McCain was a co-sponsor of the reform bill in question. Regardless, it raises some serious questions for the Dems and Obama, who have been quick to blame this on Bush and the GOP.