TM7 you wanted to know where I got some of my information, well here is some. Dems are mostly to blame.
While the media is very quick to blame the recent financial crisis on Republicans in general and Bush in particular there are some important points that I think should be kept in mind when we look at how we arrived at this point....
1. The Clinton Administration FORCED banks to lend in poor areas and used aggressive policing tactics to punish banks that didn’t make loans to people even though those people had absolutely no way to pay back the loans. (Even the NY Times reported this back in 1995:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E2DE1639F932A05753C1A963958260)
2. Franklin Raines was the head of Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2004 and he made $90 Million in bonuses taken from the company.
3. Fannie Mae overstated earnings to the tune of $10.6 BILLION.
4. Raines had to pay BACK $24Million from his bonuses due to the accounting FRAUD!!!!
5. Raines has given $91,500 of his own money to Democratic candidates over the past 20 years and $5,000 to Republicans. (
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Franklin_Raines.php)
6. Obama has received $112,000 from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae employees. Since 2005 John McCain has received $16,4000 (
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-trailmoney9-2008sep09,0,1969729.story?track=rss)
7. Since 2004 Obama has received $126,349 from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac employees and PAC’s, second only to Chris Dodd the Democratic Chairman of the Senate banking committee. (
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html)
8. In 2005 JOHN McCAIN ON THE FLOOR OF THE US SENATE SAID “For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – known as government-sponsored entities or GSEs – and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market," (this was in testimony on the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 which was never passed.) (
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190)
9. Franklin Raines predecessor at Fannie Mae was James Johnson who ran Fannie Mae from 1991-1998, his 1998 bonus was $1.9 Million (which was a result of rigged earnings). He got preferential treatment on personal loans totaling $7.7Million from Countrywide one of Fannie Mae’s biggest customers (
http://www.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121279970984353933.html). From 2001 and 2006 he got an additional $3.3Million from Fannie Mae.
10. Obama picked HIM to be on his VP vetting team until the press and Republicans cried foul (
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auHZ.1T7m1gw&refer=home11. While the Obama camp has now stated that Raines is NOT an advisor to Obama this is new (their denial). The Washington Post ran a story about Obama being an advisor a couple of years ago and the Obama camp said nothing. I will leave it to you to decide if he was or is an advisor.
Bush had terrorism and a war going on. Economy was working fine at the time so not much attention was paid to it.