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The Democrats have been in control of Congress for the last 4 years. Let's see how that compares with the first 6 years of the decade under a Republican Congress:
Republican Congress - 6 years under Clinton/Bush;
The economy (GDP) grew by 37.4% (6.23%/yr).
Employment increased by 7.5 Million jobs.
Deficits averaged $231 Billion per year.
Democratic Congress – Last 4 years;
The economy (GDP) grew by only about 7.5% (1.87%/yr).
The Democrats have been in control of Congress for the last 4 years. Let's see how that compares with the first 6 years of the decade under a Republican Congress:
Republican Congress - 6 years under Clinton/Bush;
The economy (GDP) grew by 37.4% (6.23%/yr).
Employment increased by 7.5 Million jobs.
Deficits averaged $231 Billion per year.
Democratic Congress – Last 4 years;
The economy (GDP) grew by only about 7.5% (1.87%/yr).
Sadly most people in America didn't even know which party controlled congress in 2007-2008. I saw one of those 'talk to the man on the street' segments and almost no one got it right when asked. The population has time for tons of reality shows but they turn away from the most important reality show of all: their own government.
Hi. I'm Bob Rubin, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and I'm going to introduce today's topic.
The President, as you know, has a broad, comprehensive strategy for dealing with the economic problems of the country for putting the country back on the right track for the long-term. A lot of the legislative and executive actions that have taken place in 1993 have been pursuant to that long-term economic strategy of the President's.
An important component of that strategy is to deal with the problems of the inner city and distressed rural communities -- pursuant to his belief that we must make real progress in those areas if this country is going to be successful in the future for all of us. The reform of the Community Reinvestment Act is an essential building block in the efforts I've just mentioned.
In July the President asked the four banking regulators to reform CRA, to reduce paperwork in process and reward performance, and to get that done by January 1, 1994. We're delighted to report that that has been accomplished on schedule. And in conjunction with the President's Community Development Bank and financial institution legislation, which recently passed the House of Representatives, CRA reform will generate billions of dollars in new lending and extend basic banking services to the inner cities and to distressed rural communities around the country.
Sandra F. Braunstein, Director, Division of Consumer and Community Affairs
The Community Reinvestment Act
Before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives
February 13, 2008
The CRA regulations were substantially revised again in 1995, in response to a directive to the agencies from President Clinton to review and revise the CRA regulations to make them more performance-based, and to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden. This directive addressed criticisms that the regulations, and the agencies' implementation of them through the examination process, were too process-oriented, burdensome, and not sufficiently focused on actual results. The agencies also changed the CRA examination process to incorporate these revisions.
Gramm had maintained that he did not want anything in the bill that would expand the application of the Community Reinvestment Act because it was, he said, unnecessarily burdensome to banks. He had sought a provision that would exempt thousands of smaller banks from the law. He also wanted a provision that would expose what he has described as the "extortion" committed by community groups against banks by requiring the groups to disclose any special financial deals the groups extract from the banks.
But the White House found that provision unacceptable and had its own ideas about community lending. It wanted the legislation to prevent any bank with an unsatisfactory record of making loans to the disadvantaged from expanding into new areas, like insurance or securities.
The White House had insisted that the President would veto any legislation that would scale back minority-lending requirements. Four days of intense negotiations between Summers, Gene Sperling, the President's top economic policy adviser, and Gramm, while moving the two sides closer, failed to resolve the differences.
Such was the state of play Thursday evening when Gramm decided to force the issue by having the House-Senate conference committee vote on his proposed compromise, which the White House had already rejected for failing to block banks with bad lending records from expanding to new businesses.
When Gramm's measure was defeated by one vote, it quickly became clear that there would be no law unless Gramm could get some Democrats to break from the White House.
But Administration officials had spent all day making sure that the Democrats remained solidly against the measure until their concerns about the Community Reinvestment Act could be worked out.
2003 - New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.
Now whom was it again that was pushing banks to make bad mortgages? At the very most you can blame Bush for following along with the poor policies of the Clinton administration.
Sorry, but the economic downturn happened as a result of President Bush pushing banks to open mortgages to those that could not afford the loans.
Please list some of these things Bush did to push banks to open up mortgages.. Sorry but you are simply posting BS and not facts.. Bush tried to STOP Fannie/Freddie from making such irresponsible spending.. The only thing you can find is a bush speech taken out of context saying people should be home owners.. PERIOD.. I challenge you to backup your accusations with FACTS..
Quote:
Originally Posted by LookinForMayberry
He's also responsible for consuming the reserves left by President Clinton, which would've been beneficial, at this point.
More left wing lies.. THERE WAS NO RESERVES.. but if there was, it was because Republicans controlled Congress.. CONGRESS spends not the president..
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