Fruits of Liberal Policy

Obama Votes Present on Fannie/Freddie

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Again, the WSJ is on the ball today…

If Sen. Obama were truly looking for a kind of deregulation that might be responsible for the current financial crisis, he need only look back to 1998, when the Clinton administration ruled that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could satisfy their affordable housing obligations by purchasing subprime mortgages. This ultimately made it possible for Fannie and Freddie to add a trillion dollars in junk loans to their balance sheets. This led to their own collapse, and to the development of a market in these mortgages that is the source of the financial crisis we are wrestling with today.

Finally, on the matter of deregulation and the financial crisis, Sen. Obama should consider his own complicity in the failure of Congress to adopt legislation that might have prevented the subprime meltdown.

In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.

Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending — but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama’s past: voting present.

READ IT HERE

Why Do Our Taxes Go To ACORN?

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You might ask, as I did when I found out the Democrat shell company ACORN is federally funded, why this is the case. A Wall Street Journal piece today lays out some detail we didn’t know, and now we feel like being militant ourselves.

“But the organization’s real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn’s American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an “affordable housing” provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.

All this money gives Acorn the ability to pursue its other great hobby: electing liberals. Acorn is spending $16 million this year to register new Democrats and is already boasting it has put 1.3 million new voters on the rolls. The big question is how many of these registrations are real.”

READ THE ARTICLE

Obama’s Tony Robbins Connection

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After listening to the hundreds of hours the media have forced onto the airwaves of Barack Obama blowing hot air and smoke, I’ve noticed a familiar cadence in his speech and manner. In fact, as I listened more and more and noticed the nuances and mannerisms, even terminology, I searched my memory for the connection. He sounds like someone. He sounds like one of those self-help lecturers. After a lot of struggle and even some doubt as to whether I was imagining it, I finally placed the fence-sitter’s choice award winning performance. His voice, his movements, his tone, …his whole persona is a carefully crafted and rehearsed impression of Tony Robbins.

As the realization sunk in, another realization hit me; no wonder his empty rhetoric and out-of-nowhere-but-crooked-Chicago-politics origin have not hindered his rise to populist popularity. No wonder the common folk (some say simple minded) fall so easily for his hypnotic ambiguity. HE’S A MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER! Not an inspirational speaker, not an truth speaker, not even an empathetic speaker. This difference between B.O. and Robbins is that motivational speaker B.O. keeps all of his talking points in the ethereal realm of “hope” and “change” and, as much as possible, avoids the facts of reality.

It’s only been in recent weeks, since McCain’s started using his teeth, that Obama’s begun to abandon the happy-because-I-decide-to-be cirrus world of the golden and happy-tongued.

Though I can’t definitively verify the connection between Obama and Robbins, a cursory search returned ample references to that connection, several claiming certain knowledge that Barry was trained by Robbins. (If you know any different or can confirm, feel free to comment.)

For the record, I understand from soaking up public sentiment over my life that Tony Robbins has made millions of dollars helping a great many people for exactly as long as those people stay in the bubble and procedure of belief in his system. Though I don’t know much about his programs and have never seen him speak, I know the self-help lecturer type and I know the effects of those programs. When there’s substance, it’s a good thing. When substance and sound policy is absent, it’s mass hypnosis.

There’s nothing wrong with people seeking to improve themselves and seeking advice on that pursuit from those who they believe have experienced success. The problem I have is when a extremist politician stands in front of the country and builds a presidential campaign on a tick-perfect impression of a filthy-rich famous (and very liberal) motivational speaker. Barack Obama shouldn’t want the presidency on mirroring someone else’s performance without the substance. He may have the performance down, but by discerning his words we suspect that he’s still just the angry kid with a tumor of a chip on his shoulder that metastasized by the teachings of questionable parenting until supported and saved by stable grandparents, though one was a “racist”, so he says. An angry kid shaped by charity education and then radicals and corrupt politics afterward.

When I think of Obama, a quote from the most recent Bond movie, Casino Royale, keeps popping into my head, so I’ll let you decide if the shoe fits…

… by the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or wherever. Naturally you think human beings dress like that. But you wear it with such disdain, my guess is you didn’t come from money, and your school friends never let you forget it. Which means that you were at that school by the grace of someone else’s charity: hence that chip on your shoulder.

Obama’s a stage performer, and one inch deep, not a change agent.

CNN Calls Out Obama On Lies about Ayers

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According to CNN, “…the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said.”

1. Turns out they were close and worked very closely for 7+ years. Very interesting.

2. Instead of giving money directly to schools which was the cover of the efforts they were involved with, the money went to radical community organization groups and school experiments focused on United Nations studies and Black Studies.

3. A second foundation generated money for Jerimiah Wright’s church, among others evils.

Frankly I’m shocked to see Andersen Cooper doing fair news, but better late than never.

Burning down the house – what caused the financial crisis

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Watch and rate the video on YouTube to keep it in front of the fence-sitters who don’t know this information.

Reasons To Vote Democrat: A Quick List

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There’s another email going around that contains some very valuable truths…

WHY I’VE DECIDED TO VOTE DEMOCRAT

I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrats see fit.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don’t have to hide from us over there, they’ll come over here, and I don’t want to have any guns in the house to shoot them with.

(I’m so Democrat that I have a big sign on the door of my house: There are no guns in this home! That, I am quite sure, will deter criminals. I think all Democrats should be required to display this sign on their home.)

I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

I really wonder why anyone would ever vote Republican.

Clinton & Dems Mandated Bad Credit Housing

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READ THIS vintage 1999 L.A. Times article, “Minorities’ Home Ownership Booms Under Clinton but Still Lags Whites”, and thank Clinton and and his administration for coaxing into homes those who didn’t need, and obviously couldn’t afford, them. Cheer for the democrats, who let massaging their voting base of minorities cloud their already embarrassingly poor natural judgment about the economic stability of the country as a whole.

The one thing the democrats are doing that they may not expect, is making the case that the poor are just as greedy to live beyond their means and aren’t ready for responsibility, even when you make it easy. The article points out…

It’s one of the hidden success stories of the Clinton era. In the great housing boom of the 1990s, black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded. The number of African Americans owning their own home is now increasing nearly three times as fast as the number of whites; the number of Latino homeowners is growing nearly five times as fast as that of whites.

These numbers are dramatic enough to deserve more detail. When President Clinton took office in 1993, 42% of African Americans and 39% of Latinos owned their own home. By this spring, those figures had jumped to 46.9% of blacks and 46.2% of Latinos.

That’s a lot of new picket fences. Since 1994, when the numbers really took off, the number of black and Latino homeowners has increased by 2 million. In all, the minority homeownership rate is on track to increase more in the 1990s than in any decade this century except the 1940s, when minorities joined in the wartime surge out of the Depression.

and…

All of this suggests that Clinton’s efforts to increase minority access to loans and capital also have spurred this decade’s gains. Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws. The bottom line: Between 1993 and 1997, home loans grew by 72% to blacks and by 45% to Latinos, far faster than the total growth rate.

Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more.

and…

In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down payments–or with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer’s income. That’s made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected.

and…

The top priority may be to ask more of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two companies are now required to devote 42% of their portfolios to loans for low- and moderate-income borrowers; HUD, which has the authority to set the targets, is poised to propose an increase this summer. Although Fannie Mae actually has exceeded its target since 1994, it is resisting any hike. It argues that a higher target would only produce more loan defaults by pressuring banks to accept unsafe borrowers. HUD says Fannie Mae is resisting more low-income loans because they are less profitable.

Barry Zigas, who heads Fannie Mae’s low-income efforts, is undoubtedly correct when he argues, “There is obviously a limit beyond which [we] can’t push [the banks] to produce.” But with the housing market still sizzling, minority unemployment down and Fannie Mae enjoying record profits (over $3.4 billion last year), it doesn’t appear that the limit has been reached.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

You could almost smell the invitation to crash in the second to last paragraph above. Almost as if the L.A. Times, high on the powder of a Clinton White House and Democrat Congress, even smelled the rotten fish.

EVEN more damning is this New York Times (currently dba Obama Campaign PR consultancy) article written in the last year of the evil reign of Clinton. READ IT HERE

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people…

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry…”

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

And here we are.

Publish on the rooftops… Bill (I feel your pain) Clinton, Barney (Buddy Hackett’s less intelligent twin brother) Frank, Chris Dodd, etc. can claim this victory for the poor and disenfranchised. Well done!

And the Surrender Poodle from San Francisco has the guts to blame Republicans!?

Tax Plan: Obama Wants Women Out of The Workplace

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In an Op-Ed Piece in the WSJ Obama’s two economic advisers, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee outline the domestic terrorism that is the standard Democrat taxation strategy. To bring the propaganda from the O-blivious campaign the New York Sun editors adds the commentary…

Mr. Obama’s two economic advisers, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee, have an op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, and it isn’t pretty. To begin with, they propose bringing back the 39.6% top income tax bracket, an increase from the 35% current top rate. On top of that, he’d impose a new payroll tax on those top earners of 2% to 4%, bringing their marginal tax rate to as high as 43.6%. Add to that the top New York City income tax rate of 3.648% and the top New York State income tax rate of 6.85%, and the nominal marginal income tax rate mounts to a staggering 54%. Because Mr. Obama proposes to put the capital gains and dividend tax rate at 20% even for the “rich” — a mere 33% increase over the current 15% rate — expect to see plenty of high earners scurrying to find creative ways of structuring their income as capital gains or dividends rather than as earned income.

Meanwhile, the most astonishing sentence in the op-ed is this one: “His plan would not raise any taxes on couples making less than $250,000 a year, nor on any single person with income under $200,000.” It amounts to a declaration of war on two-income families, a marriage penalty of punitive proportions. If those two single persons with income just under $200,000 get married, Mr. Obama is going to hammer them with a huge tax increase. If the second earner, who in many cases is the woman, is going to have to give 54% of what she earns to the government, she might as well stay home with the children. Mr. Obama may be able to get away with symbolic slights to women, such as not picking Senator Clinton as vice president. But punishing them with confiscatory taxes for participating in the workforce at a high income level moves the slight into the realm of substance.