Pelosi Tirade Before Crucial Vote Reason
Make no mistake about it, this is now the Democrat's Economy.
Having failed to produce enough votes to bailout Wall Street fat-cats and primary Democrat Donors from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other big Wall Street Banks that the Democrats have FAILED to regulate these past two years, we present to you the reason the bailout package failed today.
This was Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House Speaker just minutes before the vote:
Is it any wonder the vote failed? With rhetoric like this, why would any Republican vote for the abhorrent monstrosity that is the Bailout Package? The Democrats have all the votes they need in the House to pass whatever legislation they want. They didn't need a single Republican vote to pass the bill. They failed. The fallout is squarely on their heads.
And here are the Democrats just last year, stating there's no problem with Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. (Notice all the Republican's in the video calling for regulating Fannie & Freddie, and notice the Congressional Black Caucus members in this video protecting "one of their own.")
Democrats need to face up to a few facts here.
First, it was the Jimmy Carter Administration along with a Democrat Controlled Congress that passed the "Community Reinvestment Act" of 1977 that outlawed "redlining" and prohibited banks from refusing to loan money to low-income 'urban' dwellers.
Second, it was the Clinton Administration in 1992 that put massive pressure on Banks to grant more mortgages and loans to the "poor" and "minotrities." Banks were threatened with punitive action if they did not comply. Clinton's Secretary of HUD Andrew Cuomo investigated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for racial discrimintation and proposed that 50% of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of low to moderate income borrowers by the year 2001 (the end of the Clinton Administration.)
Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee." Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke -- it's a fact.
When Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches, political correctness was given a veto over sound business practices. In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."
Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.
A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it's gone off. In Bush's first year in office, the White House chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government's "implicit subsidy" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system.
Rep. Barney Frank denounced White House Chief Economist Mankiw, saying he had no "concern about housing." How dare he oppose suicidal loans to people who can't repay them!
The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "under heavy assault by the Republicans," but these entities still had "important political allies" in the Democrats. And why wouldn't they? Banking Committee Chariman Chris Dodd (D. CT) had received more than $500,000 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, and a rising star in the Democrat Party named Barak Obama received just over $400,000. Democrats Barney Frank and Hillary Clinton also received massive campaign contributions from Fannie & Freddie Mac. Surely Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac had allies in the Do Nothing Congress controlled by the Democrat Party!
Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.
Political correctness had already ruined education, sports, science and entertainment. But it took a Democratic president with a Democratic congress for political correctness to wreck the financial industry.
Democrats have accomplished in a few short years what Bin Laden has been trying to do for more than a decade now: Wreck America's economic system.
Thank you, Democrats!