Study proves it: Bush NOT TO BLAME for economic crash

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 12:25pm

A new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research proves that Pres. Obama's and the Democrat's policy of "Blaming Bush" for the last 5 years is complete BS!!
The study lays most of the blame for the economic collapse of 2007-08 on the crash of the housing market, which occurred primarily due to Democratic policies.
Is this REALLY a surprise??

"A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act--enacted under Carter, made shockingly more aggressive under Clinton) is directly responsible for imploding the housing market and destroying the economy."

Let's review:
-President Bush went to Congress repeatedly for years warning them that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to destroy the economy (17 times in 2008 alone). Democrats continuously ignored him, shut down his proposals along party lines and continued raiding the institutions for campaign contributions on their way down.

-John McCain (you remember the guy who ran against Pres. Obama) also co-sponsored urgently critical reforms that would have prevented the housing market collapse, but Democrats shut that down as well, along party lines, and even openly ridiculed anyone who suggested reforms were necessary...to protect their taxpayer-funded campaign contributions as the economy raced uncontrollably toward the cliff.

-No one was making bad loans to unqualified people until Democrats came along and threatened to drag banks into court and have them fined and branded as racists if they didn't go along with the left's Affirmative Action lending policies...all while federally
insuring their losses. Even the New York Times warned in the late 1990s that Democrats continuing to force banks into lowering their lending standards would lead to this exact catastrophe.


National Bureau of Economic Research

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 12:29pm

Ugh. You ruin this board. Enjoy your psychosis. Loser.

[jasonf]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 3:21pm

Consider your source. The blurb about the writer:


"Robert Moon is an award-winning researcher, published author, and former Regional Coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. He has organized for conservative causes and candidates for the last fifteen years, is a former Precinct Committeeman and is currently stationed overseas."

Next.

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 4:22pm

Moon wrote the article, he did not do the study.


Bureau of Economic Research

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 5:01pm

Funding

Between 1985 and 2001, the National Bureau of Economic Research [sic] received $9,963,301 in 73 grants from only four SELF-AVOWEDLY CONSERVATIVE foundations:

John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife)
Smith Richardson Foundation




SOURCE WATCH: National Bureau of Economic Research

Updated On: 2/10/13 at 05:01 PM

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 6:11pm

Hmmm. interesting that the link you provided said
its funding was from "four sources". No mention in your link of the word CONSERVATIVE in describing the sources except in YOUR POST. So, I assume that you, PalJoey, added that word CONSERVATIVE (in nice big capital letters) yourself, didn't you??
Nice try.

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 6:26pm

Uh. Do you deny that those foundations are conservative? Simple research shows that they are. Why does it have to be specifically mentioned in that link to be true?

And are you seriously mocking PalJoey for using capital letters to highlight a word? Your posts read like Harry Potter post-puberty with all the capslock.

Again, you ruin this board. Find another hobby. Maybe a positive one this time.

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 6:43pm

I don't know if they are CONSERVATIVE (with capital letters), conservative or LIBERAL or liberal. The link that PalJoey provided did not indicate their ideology.

"And are you seriously mocking PalJoey for using capital letters to highlight a word?"

No. I am SERIOUSLY mocking PalJoey for copying and pasting from the link he provided, and then ADDING the word "CONSERVATIVE" to the quote, it isn't used on the page he linked to!

"Find another hobby. Maybe a positive one this time."

What could possibly be more positive than revealing the TRUTH to a group of people who live life with their heads in the sand??

Updated On: 2/10/13 at 06:43 PM

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 6:51pm

SourceWatch (formerly Disinfopedia) is a collaborative online wiki operated by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), an American progressive organization.

SourceWatch is a propaganda site funded by an extreme left-wing, anti-capitalist and anti-corporate organization, the Center for Media and Democracy. Just like the untrustworthy Wikipedia the content can be written and edited by ordinary web users. Users who all conveniently share an extreme left-wing bias. SourceWatch is frequently cited by those seeking to smear individuals and organizations who do not share their extreme left-wing bias since they cannot find any legitimate criticisms from respected news sources.

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 7:02pm

What could be more positive? I don't know man, work in a soup kitchen, knit a scarf. But these hysterical rants are just annoying. Do you really think that the party line you tow is 100% on the money with every goddamn thing? You're not a moron, you know thats not true. If you want to discuss these topics, how about you calm down with the fire and brimstone and capslock. You know that Democrats and liberal ideologies aren't evil, just as I know Republicans and (certain) conservative ideologies aren't evil.

I think you do like theater. I think you do enjoy some of the posters on this board. Wanna actually participate?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 8:05pm

They are, indeed, conservative foundations.

Self-avowedly conservative.

SO your study is, by definition, flawed and biased.

Updated On: 2/10/13 at 08:05 PM

[jasonf]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 8:08pm

Beadle - you're wasting your time. He can't be any more reasoned with than the giant in act two of Into the Woods.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 8:21pm

Why are you so embarrassed that the foundations are conservative?

They're certainly not embarrassed.

Why are you?

[finebydesign]

Posted: 2/11/13 at 1:34pm

Even if we take the blame for sub-prime mortgage bull**** WTF about the two wars, 9/11, Medicare Part D and the Bush Tax Cuts?

With the Bush tax cuts, war spending was the main factor in exploding the deficit. All the surplus accumulated under Clinton is gonzo!

Who has time reply to these apologists? They get their own facts apparently.

But seriously? Let's pretend like 9/11 and the wars had nothing to do with this? Three major financial disasters which were perfectly preventable. Seriously?

Updated On: 2/11/13 at 01:34 PM

[madbrian]

Posted: 2/11/13 at 1:53pm

Lots of folks have their fingerprints on the financial collapse, so there is plenty of blame to go around. Deregulation had been occurring for decades, and neither party nor any administration did anything to put the guard rails back onto our economy. That said, the GOP response to any crisis is to cut taxes, cut social spending, and cut regulations, and that approach only made matters worse. Our government needed to intervene, and the intervention should have been significantly grander than Obama's stimulus.

And for the record, while we still have a deficit, it has been DECREASING during Obama's presidency.

Updated On: 2/12/13 at 01:53 PM

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 2/11/13 at 2:31pm

^^^^^

Preach.

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/11/13 at 9:25pm

Republicans try to warn the Congress that Freddy and Fanny are unstable. Democrats shrug it off; "There is NO CRISIS!"


DemocratsL Freddy and Fanny are doing FINE

[hyperbole_and_a_half]

Posted: 2/11/13 at 10:56pm

You are correct that subprime loans and the housing bubble are as close to a single cause for the recession as we are likely to get (although many other factors greased the chute).

How disappointing the rest of my post is going to be for you.

From George W. Bush's address to the White House Conference on Increasing Minority Homeownership, October 15, 2002:

"I appreciate your attendance to this very important conference. You see, we want everybody in America to own their own home. [...] I set an ambitious goal. It's one that I believe we can achieve. It's a clear goal, that by the end of this decade we'll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families. [...] If -- when we meet this project, this goal, according to our Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, we will have added an additional $256 billion to the economy by encouraging 5.5 million new home owners in America.

To open up the doors of homeownership there are some barriers, and I want to talk about four that need to be overcome. First, down payments. A lot of folks can't make a down payment. [...] And so we've called upon Congress to set up what's called the American Dream Down Payment Fund, which will provide financial grants to local governments to help first-time home buyers who qualify to make the down payment on their home.

Secondly, affordable housing is a problem in many neighborhoods, particularly inner-city neighborhoods. What I'm doing is proposing a single-family affordable housing credit to encourage the construction of single-family homes in neighborhoods where affordable housing is scarce.

Over the next five years the initiative will provide home builders and therefore home buyers with -- home builders with $2 billion in tax credits to bring affordable homes and therefore provide an additional supply for home buyers.

Another obstacle to minority homeownership is the lack of information. [...] And so today, I'm pleased to announce that through Mel's office, we're going to distribute $35 million in 2003 to more than 100 national, state and local organizations that promote homeownership through buyer education.

And, of course, one of the larger obstacles to minority homeownership is financing, is the ability to have their dream financed. Right now, we have a program that all of you are familiar with, maybe our fellow Americans are, and that's what they call a Section 8 housing program [...] We think it's important that we use those vouchers, that federal money to help low-income Americans go from being somebody who leases to somebody who owns; that we use the Section 8 program to not only help with down payment, but to help with continuing monthly mortgage payments after they're into their new home.

I'm also going to encourage the lending industry to develop a mortgage market so that this script, these vouchers, can regularly be used as a source of payment to provide more capital to lenders, who can then help more families move from rental housing into houses of their own. [...] Partners in the mortgage finance industry are encouraging homeownership by purchasing more loans made by banks to African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.

Freddie Mae -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- I see the heads who are here; I want to thank you all for coming -- (laughter) -- have committed to provide more money for lenders. They've committed to help meet the shortage of capital available for minority home buyers. [...] Freddie Mac recently began 25 initiatives around the country to dismantle barriers and create greater opportunities for homeownership. One of the programs is designed to help deserving families who have bad credit histories to qualify for homeownership loans."

So in this one speech, Bush takes credit for eliminating down payments--ensuring that people who could not afford homes could still be approved for home loans--and for providing a tax incentive to builders to flood the market with houses to reduce home values (i.e. purchase prices) which lead to the housing bubble. He also encourages the proliferation of the mortgage-backed security market (whose collapse brought our financial infrastructure to its knees), and pats Freddie Mac on the back for relaxing underwriting standards to include subprime lending. These were the Four Horsemen of the financial apocalypse, and Bush gladly took credit for all of them.

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/12/13 at 12:32am

From the New York Times in September 30, 1999:

“Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. . . ."

he LA Times writes on May 31, 1999 that:

"It’s one of the hidden success stories of the Clinton era. In the great housing boom of the 1990s, black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded. The number of African Americans owning their own home is now increasing nearly three times as fast as the number of whites; the number of Latino homeowners is growing nearly five times as fast as that of whites…."

Another article in the New York TImes from September 11, 2003:

"The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. . . ." This reform – and another in 2005/06 – were blocked by Democrats who threatened to filibuster the bill in the Senate.
”The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,” said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ”Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie’s operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

”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.” "



Bush and the Republicans were NOT the driving force behind the subprime mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis. President Bush promoted LEGITIMATE homeownership, but he also caved in to the Democrats' racial demagoguery and "went along" with their program to some extent. (Had he not, the accusations of racism would have been non-stop). However, when Bush and the Republican Congress tried to actually head off the subprime mortgage crisis before it was too late, the Democrats opposed them fiercely, as is made clear with the video I posted above.
When the Republicans attempted to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005, for example, the Democrats called them racists, as usual, and thwarted their efforts by filibustering with only 45 votes in the Senate.

History proves that Pres. Bush merely continued a trend that was begun and set into motion by Democrats decades earlier. He’s not blameless in this mess, but he’s clearly not the scapegoat, either.

Democrats have been repeatedly and very publicly blaming Republicans for their determination to deregulate. But that is a lie. Republicans – specifically including Bush and McCain – DID try to regulate. And it was Democrats who blocked them. That is a fact. It is on full view in the video above and is mentioned in the NY Times article.

When Nancy Pelosi uttered in her incredibly irresponsible speech prior to the House vote on the bailout package, she said it was “failed Bush policies” that created this disaster. If you are going to blame one party, you need to blame the Democrats.
It’s not that Bush and the Republicans should be absolved. They shouldn’t. But they DID try to do something that would have prevented this, and Dems in lock-step prevented them from doing it. Republican's biggest failure was not standing up to Democrats.
Bush/McCain Warn about Fanny/Freddy: THE TIMELINE