People sometimes wonder how the gigantic mortgage mess got created in the first place?
My CPA gave me a article in October, 2008, pinning, to my satisfaction, the responsibility on the Bill Clinton administration.
People say no Congressman or Congresswoman would want to keep in place a self-destructive mess?
Oh, really?
Maybe they think, the tooth fairy is to blame for driving Illinois broke for years.
Not leaving enough money under the pillow?
Dems like Jack Franks and Melissa Bean knew who they were getting for governor when they twice supported Rod Blagojevich’s running Illinois government.
Melissa Bean receiving an award at the March 2008 McHenry County Economic Development Commission banquet from McHenry County College President Walt Packard.
Bean is on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.
That’s the one Barney Frank chairs.
She could have done something about the mortgage crisis.
She was in the right place at the right time.
But how was Melissa Bean influenced after she took office and got that plum fund raising appointment?
Was she looking the other way and supporting a disastrous housing financing plan for the country that encouraged people to get mortgages they couldn’t possibly repay?
It’s easy to briefly sum it up.
All you do is have to look at who was paying for keeping the mortgage spigot open for no income verification, no down payment mortgages.
Some evidence is on the Federal Election Commission website under political contributions:
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 10/11/2006 – $191,700
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 10/13/2006 – $272,968
These two add up to $464,668. They were “independent expenditures” on behalf of Bean’s election.
Should supporters of Bean’s GOP foe Joe Walsh expect a similar onslaught?
It’s a way around the severe limits on campaign contributions made directly to a candidate.
The purpose is the same:
Get Bean elected.
No one should be surprised that the “financial reform” ballyhooed about by Bean and President Obama omitted any reforms of Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.
None.
Zero.
Zilch.
Bean’s receiving $465,000 of support for 2006 her election against David McSweeney was simply huge.
At that point if Bean wasn’t being bought and paid for, she was up for a long-term rental.
Those on the inside of mortgage banking knew what it meant when banks weren’t allowed to verify that each borrower had a valid social security number.
Think about it.
What group of people don’t have valid social security numbers?
Then thank Melissa I’m-so-caring Bean for letting abuses continue to happen in the mortgage market.
Bean’s been on the job for six years.
The mortgage meltdown was on her watch, even if she was looking the other way or just keeping her eyes closed.
You can expect Bean to apologize for the mortgage housing debacle about as soon as Blago is going to apologize for being lower than snail slime.
He proclaims “innocence” and Bean pretends to accept no blame pretending to be Miss Innocent Eyes.
Her political advisers should be telling her how “Yes, Dear,” husband might accept that kind of blameless bull, but it’s a bad bet that voters will.
Yes – some type of reform addressing Freddie/Fannie would have been prudent. But any claim that Freddie/Fannie were the sole reason we had the mortgage meltdown is fantasy. It was a meltdown of epic proportions, only because of the lunacy of Freddie/Fannie AND of the private profiteers who saw a chance to wildly profit by making bets backstopped by someone else. Yes – to allow taxpayers vulnerable to such shenanigans is idiocy to be sure, but to ignore the private profiteers – such as mortgage companies, derivatives buyers and sellers, large financial institutions is propaganda driven by the business community. I’d be more of a buyer of TP agenda if you’d post some blame to the thieves on Wall Street who made off with billions and got to keep it, while the rest of us take a financial pounding.