Washington Examiner: Politicians never learn they can't change the facts by Bill Wilson

Washington Examiner: Politicians never learn they can't change the facts by Bill Wilson

9/28/08

All the back and forth over the proposed $700 billion bailout of New York financial firms has degenerated into gibberish, incomprehensible to most voters.

[…]

While a few elected officials try to figure out a way to deal with the crisis, many on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in the partisan salons are busy doing what they do best - playing the blame-game and looking to escape exposure of their culpability.

House Banking Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, led off the spin effort by stating, “The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it.”

Notice that Frank doesn’t say “Wall Street” got us in to this mess. For him and all too many of his allies, it is the “private sector” that is evil. A chorus of lesser voices have been dutifully parroting Frank ever since.

What Frank, Senate Banking Committee chairman Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CN, and others of their ilk are afraid of is that the public will learn the facts of this debacle. And the facts are clear.

The crisis we face is not a failure of the private sector. This crisis was conceived, manufactured, nurtured and defended by government and the horde of apologists who feed off of it.

As Deep Throat admonished a generation ago, let’s follow the money. In 1995, the Clinton Administration issued rules that required banks and lending institutions to give loans to people who could not afford them. The lending standards were essentially gutted. This was an overt act of government.

The banks complied and gave the loans. They got the money to lend by selling the bad mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These semi-government entities “bought” the bad mortgages from the banks. But where did Fannie and Freddie get the money to buy the bad debt?

[…]

Read Mr. Wilson’s entire opinion here: Washington Examiner: Politicians never learn they can't change the facts by Bill Wilson

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/Politicians_never_learn_they_cant_change_the_facts.html

20080928 Washington Examiner: Politicians never learn they cant change the facts by Bill Wilson