March 27, 2009
The Clown Car Junta - Barney Frank
This post courtesy of husband-dude:
As one of our elected leaders who is bringing us "hope and change" we have Barney Frank. Since 1981, he has been reelected no less than 13 times to the House of Representatives! How about that change?
Barney Frank's initial appeal to the voters was his resistance to Reagonomics - in other words he was against the 25 years of growth and prosperity this country has enjoyed - and through his tireless efforts with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares a good deal of the responsibility for derailing the economy.
The Representative from Massachusetts has a reputation among Capitol Hill staffers as one of the most eloquent and brilliant speakers of the House, so in his own words, I present Barney Frank!
"And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians."
From the AP, here's a fine example of bloviating as Barney Frank tries his hand at racial demagogery!
Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attacked on the poor that's racially motivated....
"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said to a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."
"But it is also clear that left entirely untouched by public policy, the capitalist system will produce more inequality than is socially healthy or than is necessary for maximum efficiency."
But of course, there never was a problem to begin with. Frank blithely shut down any effort to regulate the mortgage finance lenders by the Bush administration because he was worried about the risk to the taxpayer! Because you see, while Fannie and Freddie were privately owned, they were protected financially by the government. What a public policy fiasco that turned into!
I don't know what's socially healthy about letting social revanchism drive Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the brink of insolvency at a cost of $200 billion to the taxpayer. After all, that money in the U.S. treasury comes from you and me. Was that the risk he was worried about?
And here is Barney Frank engaging in the calling the kettle black on CNBC.
“It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.”
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