Barney Frank Finally Has To Defend His Actions

Barney Frank Finally Has To Defend His Actions

And what a clueless twit he is:

BOSTON (AP) - Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated.
The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act.

Nope. It's an unveiled attack on the Democrats, who put subprime mortgages at higher priority than financial security--as this November 11, 2003 Wall Street Journal article reminds us:

But especially notable is the support for Fannie and Freddie from liberals who normally detest corporate welfare. In this case, Congressman Barney Frank criticized Mr. Mankiw because he is worried about the tiny little matter of safety and soundness rather than "concern about housing." But as Mr. Mankiw pointed out, most of the federal subsidy for the companies goes to enrich private investors and executives, not poor home-owners.

Democrats used "helping the poor" as an excuse to enrich a bunch of sleazy financial schemers who are, after all, one of the core factions of the Democratic Party: George Soros; the Sandlers; Franklin Raines. And what happened to a lot of poor people without financial sophistication who bought houses on loans that they couldn't support? They're losing their houses, and will end up with black marks on their credit histories that will follow them around for many years. If they had no credit history before, thanks to Barney Frank and friends, they now have a bad credit history.

By the way, that 2003 article from the Wall Street Journal had a very prescient warning:

One weakness of democracy is that it tends to ignore problems before they erupt into crises. The risk portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are a classic example. We'd prefer to see both privatized. But short of that, the least U.S. taxpayers deserve is the assurance that companies that profit from their subsidy are subject to a complete financial entrail reading by the U.S. Treasury.

You can see why Democrats hate the WSJ so much.