Bush proposed tighter regulation of Fannie and Freddie five years ago; Democrat/Socialists opposed it.
In Another Misguided Liberal-Progressive I wrote:
Democrat/Socialist Congressman Barney Frank has for many years blocked every attempt to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Â
Liberal-progressives, led by Congressman Frank, are directly responsible for the Treasury Department’s take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for the resulting huge cost to taxpayers.
Backing up that assertion, Maggie’s Farm has an indirect link to Virginia Shanahan’s post Bush Wanted Freddie and Fannie Oversight 5 years ago- Dems Said No, where she links to the following article published five years ago in the New York Times:
New York Times
September 11, 2003
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt—is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates…
Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
‘’These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis,’’ said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ‘’The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.’’
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