Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Possible reason for Wall Street crisis

Still can't refute anything I say, Ann?

I've already covered this ground, it seems like zillions of times. But I'll do it again if you wish.

The reason the Democrats opposed reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is because they wanted to continue promoting home ownership among the poor and minorities, knowing many of those people would never have been able to afford their mortgages. The reasoning behind that is that they wanted power. That is how Democrats buy votes. Fannie Mae was also their private piggy bank, complete with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations. Whenever Republicans proposed these bills, they would be slandered by the Democrats with their usual class warfare rhetoric claiming that Republicans only wanted to keep poor people and minorities from owning homes. They are still doing it today. Just listen to what Barney Frank is saying all over the airwaves.

Frank says GOP housing attacks racially motivated

Around the web, you can find direct quotes from various Democrats like Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, and others saying there was nothing wrong at all at Fannie Mae. Maxine Waters even praised Franklin Raines for his wonderful leadership at Fannie Mae, all while Raines is bilking the taxpayers of $90 million through fraud and deceit. Then instead of acknowledging problems, they attacked the regulator who was warning of the dangers.

Let's listen to these Democrats and Republicans in their own words, with the Republicans asking repeatedly for oversight and the Democrats claiming there's nothing wrong:

YouTube video

Here is the bill that McCain co-sponsored and the text of his warning to the Congress that the American people were exposed to significant dangers due to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

You were the one who brought up the inaccurate claim that Bush entered office with a "solidly Republican Congress" and then get hostile when proven wrong. I'm simply responding to what you said. All I said was that Democrats stopped the bills through the use of filibusters, which is true. Oh, and just to correct what you said here, he had a razor-thin majority against him for four years, actually, not one. Remember it was Democratic majorities of 51-49 for 2001-2003 and 51-49 in 2007-2009 with a window where Republicans controlled the Senate by 50-50-1 between January 20, 2001 and May 30, 2001.

Apparently you don't understand the power of the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote supermajority to cut off debate. That's not surprising since you're not an American. It's an unusual parliamentary rule. Under Senate rules, debates are unlimited in length and can only be terminated by a cloture vote, i.e. a 60-vote majority. This rule does not exist in the House of Representatives.

The prime example of the use of the filibuster is with appointed federal judges. Democrats used the power of the filibuster to stop numerous federal judicial appointments even though the candidates had majority support. They were opposed merely because they were conservative. Just look at judges like Charles Pickering who was called a racist despite risking his life in prosecuting a member of the KKK and having the endorsement of the Mississippi NAACP, or Miguel Estrada who was opposed because he was a conservative Hispanic (a Democratic memo was discovered indicating that they had to stop Estrada at all costs since he was Hispanic, which threatened their hold on the Hispanic vote), all highly qualified judges with top ratings from the American Bar Association. Appointees often waited for years and never got a vote on the floor because of threatened filibusters. Neither Pickering nor Estrada ever got a vote on the floor despite being voted favorably out of the Judiciary Committee several times in several different Congresses. A determined minority of 41 Senators can stop pretty much anything on the floor of the Senate.