Update and Correction: Commenter Lisa H. rightly points out that Chris Dodd was not the committee chair at the time the bill was killed in committee. He was only a high-ranking member. I misread HotAir. I apologize for the error. My bad. Thanks for the correction, Lisa!
In 2005 McCain said in a speech:
The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
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. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
The legislation he was co-sponsoring? It was killed in committee by chairman Chris Dodd. (Correction: At that point, Dodd was only a high ranking member of the committee, not the chairman. He’s the chairman today.) Alert readers will remember that Chris Dodd is number one on the list of senators who received money from Fannie and Freddie–$165,000. Obama is second on the list having received $126,000.
We have a clear contrast demonstrated in this economic and regulatory disaster. We have a situation in which “Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems”. One candidate for president is #2 on the receiving end of political contributions that greased the wheels for this unmitigated disaster for the U.S. taxpayer. The other candidate for President fought for a reform of these thoroughly corrupt institutions.
Three years later we see who was right on the economy and reform. We see who talks about reform and who fights for reform. We see one candidate who humbly admits that he doesn’t know much about the economy, but yet was fighting to prevent today’s financial disaster three years ago. We see another candidate who claims that the economy is his strong point, but yet he is bought off by a Frankenstein-like combination of Wall Street and government that has precipitated this crisis.
McCain was prescient on Russia/Georgia, the surge, and now Fannie & Freddie. McCain is the kind of guy that is analytical and understands what’s happening and what will happen and works to fix it before it blows up in our faces.
2 Responses
September 19th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
The bill was actually killed by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the 109th Congress. This committee’s chairman was Richard Shelby (R. Alaska) and the ranking member was Paul Sarbanes (D. Maryland). At the time, the committee consisted of 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats. I think it’s prudent campaign-wise of McCain to say he only introduced the bill and not mention anything else (Obama, Dems, etc.) in the same breath. Believe it or not, McCain does have some capable people left as his campaign advisors and hopefully their voices haven’t been drowned out by the incompetent ones. McCain would be doing much better if he hadn’t been so stubborn in letting the incompetents run his campaign all over the place and if he curbed his “gut instinct” a whole lot more.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
@ Lisa H.:
Lisa, you are 100% correct about that bill. My humble apologies. I misread Ed at HotAir.
Leave a Comment