Sep 21
Who’s To Blame? Guess Again. Again.
Over at WorldNet Daily, Drew Zahn writes that corporate greed and a lack of government regulation isn’t the cause of the mortgage meltdown as many are arguing. Instead, he’s pointing a finger at too much government, in the form of (liberal) activists who pressured the government to pressure Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into unsound – though politically correct – lending practices in the early 1990s.
In other words, the zeal to make more mortgages available to minorities and those who couldn’t genuinely afford what they were getting into caused the whole thing.
Doggone those liberal, too-much-goverment types.
He quotes economics professor Stan Liebowitx, who called home mortgages “a political piñata for many decades.”
There’s just one problem with this line of reasoning. Remember the Republican Revolution of 1994, when voters swept more elephants into Congress than you could shake a three ring circus at? That came after the “early 1990s.” Republicans controlled Congress back then. Why didn’t they correct these “mistakes” way back then before the Democrats regained a majority two years ago? If the Republicans had a dozen years to create legislation that would have prevented the problem before the current crisis ever happened, and didn’t do so, shouldn’t we ask why?
Angry that the Democrats haven’t already handled the problem? You should be. But they’ve only been in power a sixth of the time. If you’re mad at their lack of results, then the GOP ought to have six times as much ‘splain’ to do.
September 21st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
But, of course! It just can’t be the fault of Republican policies (like McCain and Phil Gramm’s 1999 deregulation bill that undercut the Glass-Steagall Act). Nope. It’s the Democrats’ fault!
This reminds me of the people who give Reagan credit for the economic “boom” in the 1980s, yet don’t blame him for the recession in 1991-1992, and in recent years credited him with the “boom” during the Clinton years.
Yeah, let’s see here. The “Reagan boom” just somehow skipped 1991-1992?
Gee, let me guess. This current economic downturn is…Clinton’s fault!
It’s almost impossible to keep up with the spin.
Good post, Patrick.