-By Frank Salvato
Now I know how Elvis Presley felt when he shot his television! Watching Barney Frank (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) pontificate about how they are going to save the country in it’s time of financial crisis made me nauseous. How is it that these two charlatans can fain concern when they are among the principles responsible for getting the taxpayers into this mess?
By now even the most intellectually stunted among us understands that the first casualty of politics is honesty. No matter how superficial or how serious the matter, inside the beltway spin doctors take the facts, carve out anything that points to their client’s guilt or responsibility in any given matter and then figure out how to package it so they can level a charge of irresponsibility and ineptness at their opponents or opposing colleagues. Kool-Aid drinking political sycophants glom on to these talking points and suddenly the innocent are the guilty and the inept and responsible are pointing fingers of blame.
There are several facts that we must not allow the spin doctors, the mainstream media and the guilty to rearrange:
1) Ever since George W. Bush came to power in 2000 he, along with Sen. John McCain, have been spotlighting the need for a reform of the laws that govern SEC and Wall Street oversight. Their insistence on oversight reform of our financial institutions and markets has been consistent, loud and ignored.
2) The current financial quagmire in which our nation is firmly planted started, arguably, when Bill Clinton, came up with his “National Homeownership Strategy.” This financial scheme, most likely geared toward bolstering Bubba’s legacy as a man who “cared about the little people,” promoted insanely low down payments and coerced lenders into giving mortgage loans to first-time buyers with unstable financing and incomes.
3) Barney Frank (D-MA), as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee had ample knowledge of President Bush’s and Senator McCain’s concerns about the need for oversight reform for the financial markets, yet they chose to play the roles of obstructers instead of reformers. They had the power all along to affect reforms for the financial oversight process and they did nothing.
Now, as we approach the presidential election of 2008 we witness two Democrat political opportunists trying feverishly to rewrite the history of their culpability with regard to the current financial crisis so as to hang the blame on the Bush Administration and the campaign of John McCain. Truth be told, as dishonest as the mainstream media is these days they may just get away with it.
I don’t like the fact that the financial remedy for bad business practices on Wall Street comes with a bill to the taxpayers of over $700 billion dollars. While I understand the ramifications of allowing AIG and other greed merchants of Wall Street to fail, it seems to me that the real way to alleviate the liquidity problem of the financial sector would be to afford the $700 billion of taxpayer monies to the taxpayers who need to address their unqualified loans. This way they could pay off or pay down the “bad paper” offered by the Wall Street greed merchants, thus, loosening up capital with which they might operate.
Really, it’s a simple thought; if the federal government is going to give money to anyone give it to the people who earned it so they can pay their bills. Wouldn’t this alleviate the problem?
As for Barney Frank and Chris Dodd…this is not the kind of “change” we need in Washington DC.
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Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal . He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, and is a regular guest on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent Radio Network, as well as an occasional guest on numerous radio shows coast to coast. He recently partnered in producing the first-ever symposium on the threat of radical Islamist terrorism in Washington, DC. His pieces have been recognized by the House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict. He can be contacted at oped@newmediajournal.us
If that was the case, then there is a very simple fix, drill, drill, drill. What was the tipping point for people not being able to pay their mortgages??? #1 Did they have trouble from the very beginning or #2 was it their declining standard of living due to increasing energy costs from the Dems, Drilling Ban? Those whom immediately had troubles, by now have defaulted and are foreclosed upon, so that leaves us with cause #2.
John McCain needs to show leadership to address the living of standard problem, he needs to get the federal government to share royalties with the States so drilling will start immediately. Once this is done, energy prices will drop and the CPI will drop.