C
Cosworth
Guest
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Full article
Full article
Tug McGroin
Senior
How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis
...a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.
Different World
If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.
But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.
That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: ``It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=aSKSoiNbnQY0
...a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.
Different World
If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.
But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.
That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: ``It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=aSKSoiNbnQY0
KCFlyer
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
- 11,294
- 1,427
I'll quote the rest of the article for you, since you apparently didn't get that far:
I'm going to slog thru the full text of this bill later today. Tried last night, and boy was it a cure for insomnia. Also...considering it was 2005 and the GOP had a majority in Congress, it makes me wonder how the fault can lie at only the feet of the democrats.
I'm going to slog thru the full text of this bill later today. Tried last night, and boy was it a cure for insomnia. Also...considering it was 2005 and the GOP had a majority in Congress, it makes me wonder how the fault can lie at only the feet of the democrats.
I'll reach across the aisle in the interest of partisanship even though I don't party with the GOP anymore.
If this helps...
Looks like for some reason it died in session then was wiped from the books.
Tug McGroin
Senior
OP
Cosworth
Guest
- Thread Starter
- Thread starter
- #7
Not sure what you were looking at but according to this site,
Congresspedia
the 109th Congress Senate Banking Committee had the following members.
109th Congress (2005-2006)
Members of the
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
109th Congress
Democrats:
* Paul S. Sarbanes (Md.), Ranking Member
* Christopher Dodd (Conn.)
* Tim Johnson (S.D.)
* Jack Reed (R.I.)
* Chuck Schumer (N.Y.)
* Evan Bayh (Ind.)
* Thomas R. Carper (Del.)
* Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)
* Robert Menendez (N.J.)
Republicans:
* Richard Shelby (Ala.), Chairman
* Robert Bennett (Utah)
* Wayne Allard (Colo.)
* Mike Enzi (Wyo.)
* Chuck Hagel (Neb.)
* Rick Santorum (Pa.)
* Jim Bunning (Ky.)
* Mike Crapo (Idaho)
* John E. Sununu (N.H.)
* Elizabeth Dole (N.C.)
* Mel Martinez (Fla.
The republicans let it die in committee. The reason may have had something to do with the House bill HR 1461. Te AEI which to my understanding is a conservative think tank and Pres Bush himself opposed the bill
AEI
Pres. Bush
You don't think this may have had something to do with some republicans siding with democrats to shelve the bill in the Senate do you?
I understand republicans trying to deny responsibility for stuff but to try and argue that a republican controlled senate committee was subverted by a democratic minority is just painfully stupid. And to think FOX news got it wrong .... color me surprised.
The republicans shelved the bill thinking they could revisit it the next year only to find that their shenanigans got them voted out of power.
Gilding the Lily
Veteran
- Oct 30, 2006
- 1,466
- 2
Yes, indeed. In April 2007 Hagel again introduced a bill that is substantially similar to the bill you are discussing. Oddly enough, however, McCain was not co-sponsoring this bill as he did the bill in 2005. I believe this bill is still pending. Also, Hagel introduced a similar bill in 2004 as well (with McCain as cosponsor) that was, once again, referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
It is apparent that some senate members are/were passionate about the bill. With that said, however, the Bloomberg article is intentionally misleading.
