I like how you pretend that Fannie and Freddie are the be-all and end-all of any criticism of the Bush economy, when they are just one piece in a puzzle that has brought us to this failed Bush economy.
It was Republicans for the most part that pushed the deregulation of the financial system, including the landmark Gramm Leach Bliley Act that kneecapped small businesses such as independent title agents (hard to miss this if you've been reading Robert's blog lately) and allowed our biggest financial institutions to crowd out the small entrepreneur and engage in many activities with inheerent conflicts of interest.
Also, it was Republicans for the most part that explicitly signed off in 2000 on unregulated legalized gambling in the financial markets by exempting "swaps" from interference from any regulatory body. The burst of the housing bubble might have been the match that started the fire, but the implosion of the credit default swap market was the rocket fuel that turned a downturn into a full-blown financial firestorm.
It was the Bush Administration that oversaw tax and other economic policies that created a "jobless recovery" that saw most of the benefits accrue to the very rich while everybody else experienced weak job and wage growth and high inflation on food, health care, and education that pushed many folks standard of living down even in what was supposed to be a "boom".
It was the Bush Administration that let Enron CEO Ken Lay and other cronies craft energy policy that was based on oil, then invaded a hornet's nest in Iraq without a plan, dooming the American People to sky-high energy prices which sucked away any discretionary spending power that might have been gained during the "Bush Recovery".
Heck, Fannie and Freddie doesn't even come close to telling the whole story on housing. It was the Bush Administration who was pushing for zero-down FHA loans, despite warnings from experts and predictions of "huge losses" from experts:
Zero Down Mortgage Initiative by Bush is Hit
President Bush's weekend campaign promise that he will push legislation allowing for no money down on some federally insured mortgages could cost taxpayers as much as $500 million over four years because of a higher rate of defaults, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
...
Bush proposed zero-down-payment legislation earlier this year. The Congressional Budget Office has contended for months that the proposal would generate huge losses, an assessment that could be a stumbling block for the bill's passage. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development thinks the program could be run on a break-even basis.
Bush contends that reducing the required 3 percent down in the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program to zero down would help 150,000 first-time buyers in the first year. Homeownership rates are now about 69 percent nationwide, compared to about 64 percent 10 years ago. The FHA insures many private-lender home loans.
"To build an ownership society, we'll help even more Americans to buy homes," Bush said in an Ohio speech to home builders. "Some families are more than able to pay a mortgage but just don't have the savings to put money down."
By all appearances here, Bush just wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie in order for FHA to get a bigger piece of the action. And Bush didn't push for tighter regulation of an out-of-control private subprime mortgage market either. Let's face facts: Bush's policies were all about getting that homeownership rate to record highs so that he could brag about this great accomplishment in his speeches, and he condoned and promoted irresponsible lending practices to reach that goal.
This is just a partial list of reasons why Bush and the Republicans in Congress share responsibility for the current mess. Why can't you look at this situation clearly and without partisan bias?
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