Don't Anyone Dare Say Government Caused This Mess
You can never solve a problem if you do not face up to the full scope of the problem. In listening to President Obama, and reading liberal columnists like Maureen Dowd, in the description of what caused the current economic calamity, the government is always given a pass.
We are in an economic morass because of the eight years of failed Bush policies, greed on Wall Street, tax breaks for the rich, etc. Government’s culpability which, I believe, is really the gravamen of our economic problems is never mentioned at all. Democrats and Liberals don’t dare point to Democrats and liberal policies as having anything to do with the collapsing economy. That is why they always say that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, as they also said when Clinton ran for President. They don’t dare say it is the worst economy since Jimmy Carter, since that would remind the American people that the Democrats screwed up that one as well.
Unmentionable Causes of the Current Economic Mess
- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of control. Explosive increases in debt taken on under the leadership of Franklin Raines (Democrat), and Jaime Gorelick (Democrat), remember she also gave us the firewall between the CIA and FBI that hamstrung the investigation of al Qaeda. Raines made over $90 million while at Fannie Mae and at the same time was accused of overstating earnings by $10.6 billion. So, where’s the demand for a clawback of Raines’s salary?
- Barney Frank (Democrat) and Chris Dodd (Democrat) — Frank blocked every attempt to put in place greater regulation over Fannie Mae. The Bush Administration tried to increase regulation over Fannie Mae, but Frank blocked it. What you hear today is that the reason for the economic problems are a lack of regulation. Chris Dodd got VIP mortgage treatment from Countrywide mortgage before they went belly-up. Asked to come clean on the mortgages, Dodd first said sure, we’ll get around to it. Then he made some papers available for viewing, but not copying, and has since clammed up.
- Community Reinvestment Act — Carter (Democrat) administration program to push home ownership for low income people, by forcing banks to report how much they were offering loans in low income neighborhoods and face the consequences if it wasn’t enough.
- Janet Reno (Democrat) — in the Clinton Administration Reno threatened action against financial institutions if they weren’t lending enough low income individuals. What bank doesn’t want to be publicly branded a racist institution?
So we have homeowners, who should have never qualified for a mortgage, about to receive bailouts from all the responsible people who took mortgages they could afford, when they could afford them. Do you ever hear about any of this cast of characters mentioned by President Obama or the main stream media? No. It wasn’t the government actively pushing social policy on those people least able to handle it. It was greedy banks and unscrupulous lenders, trying to avoid being branded racists, who took advantage of these poor ignorant people. Perhaps if the government hadn’t destroyed our education system, these people might have read what they were about to sign.
How Do you Solve Only Half a Problem?
As these characters are never mentioned as having a role in the problem, how can you ever hope to fix the problem if these bad actors are still going about their business doing what caused the crisis and blaming everyone else. President Obama demonstrates his inexperience more profoundly every day, seemingly making things up as he goes along. That is not leadership and what we need now in times of crisis is leadership. Obama has never shown the courage or willingness to take on his own party. Without rooting out these characters and really fixing the whole problem, it will only happen again down the road.
What we need now is a leader. Someone who actually has experience running the executive branch of a state. Someone who is not afraid to take on the entrenched power of their own party and has succeeded in doing so. Is there anyone out there who fits that bill? Gee, that sounds like Sarah Palin.
Pingback: Sarah Palin » The Innocent Bystander: Government