Eddie May and his Fannie Pack

HILARIOUS!!!! (source)

Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped President Bush’s “mismanagement” of the economy and a lack of regulation that led to the current situation.

“I think the American people have had it with this situation where the middle-income people in our country are not protected from the ramifications of the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,” Pelosi told MSNBC.

When asked whether the Democrats “deserve some responsibility” regarding the economic crisis, Pelosi responded: “No.”

Well how about this gem?

"The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry [in recent history].

"Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

"The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

"The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators [...] concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates."

Sounds like this would have been a great idea FIVE YEARS AGO!!, right?

Guess what...

It was.

This report comes from the NY Times on September 11, 2003. The plan was turned into S 190 [109] and rewrote major portions of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4502)...

Proposed by GWB...

And who brought it to the floor?

Any guesses?

Sponsor:Sen. Charles Hagel [R-NE]
Cosponsors
Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R-NC]
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]
Sen. John Sununu [R-NH]

And just what happened to this bill?

It died in the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Wait... Didn't Nancy Pelosi serve on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs?

What did the faultless Democrats have to say about the proposal back in 2003?

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

Flabbergasted

While hindsight might be 20-20... While there may be no way for them to have known what today would be like... That doesn't make it OK to try to re-write history and deny that Democrats had at least one hand in this mess.

I'll tell you what... let's put on our magical unicorn glasses, pick up our fairy wands and travel to this magical world where the Democrats have clean hands of this fiasco.

Everyone good and disillusioned?

What have the democrats done to fix it?

--blink--blink--

--(cricket)--(cricket)----(cricket)--(cricket)--

If you left your answer sheet blank, you're right.