Financial Meltdown due to Bush-McCain Economic Philosophy

[tablemtn]

Bill Clinton repealed the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.

Would this be the same Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act named after Republican Texas Senator Phil Gramm, Republican Iowa Representative Jim Leach, and Republican Virginia Representative Tom Bliley?

Come on, now. If you are honest in your reading of history, you'd see that corporations were more or less able to purchase the legislation they desired in recent years, regardless of the party in power. GLB, the DMCA, etc.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by walidm

Require more transparency and disclosure to clients through uniform GFE's.

Increase funding for enforcement programs and regulatory agencies in the mortgage industry.

Pass legislation that forces the oil companies to pay us the royalties they've owed us since 1998.

Eliminate corporate tax loopholes.

Create a positive environment for small businesses specializing in upgrading the current infrastructure.

I would argue to keep the mortgage tax deduction but find a way to make it more universal so that folks who don't itemize can actually get it.

I could be convinced to keep the mortgage deduction. The issue is that it has been a government incentive to reward homeownership, whether people were ready to be homeowners or not.

Also, create firewalls between mortgage companies, real estate companies, title companies, appraisers and builders. No more cross-ownership, which greatly undermines the credibility of the transaction.

I would say the fault lies with congress, as they were the ones that could have enacted legislation to correct a bad system. And since this goes back to before 2000, every congress that has served between then and now is complicit, Republicans and Democrats.

The issue I have with McCain and his 2005 Regulatory proposal is just 3 or 4 months ago, when asked about the housing situation, he said that the government was not responsible for people's bad decisions. No mention of his regulatory act then. If it were me, I would have used that opportunity to jump on my regulatory views.

[sanrene]

OpenSecrets | Update: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Lawmakers - Capital Eye

Obama gets second spot of this list. Raines who ran F&F into the ground is part of Obama's campaign.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008...hman-next.html

Since 1989, Lehman Brothers's employees and political action committee have given $9.2 million to federal candidates, parties and political action committees, with 54 percent of that going to Democrats. In the current Congress, 271 lawmakers have collected nearly $3 million since 1989, with 72 percent going to Democrats. Democratic presidential candidates and senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama top the list of all-time recipients for the company, collecting $410,000 and $395,600 respectively. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of both the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, hauled in $181,450, while Sen. Chris Dodd, chair of the Senate banking committee, has collected $165,800. The top recipient of PAC money from Lehman Brothers has been Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over banking and the securities industry. Castle has collected $38,500 from Lehman's PAC since 1993.

It appears all those contribution to the democrats have held off the stricter regulations the Bush admin wanted to implement 5 years ago - killed by the democrats.

[walidm]

Originally Posted by magellan

I could be convinced to keep the mortgage deduction. The issue is that it has been a government incentive to reward homeownership, whether people were ready to be homeowners or not.

Also, create firewalls between mortgage companies, real estate companies, title companies, appraisers and builders. No more cross-ownership, which greatly undermines the credibility of the transaction.

I would say the fault lies with congress, as they were the ones that could have enacted legislation to correct a bad system. And since this goes back to before 2000, every congress that has served between then and now is complicit, Republicans and Democrats.

The issue I have with McCain and his 2005 Regulatory proposal is just 3 or 4 months ago, when asked about the housing situation, he said that the government was not responsible for people's bad decisions. No mention of his regulatory act then. If it were me, I would have used that opportunity to jump on my regulatory views.

I don't want to read into the firewalls, I'll wait for your clarification. Senator McCain is in a lose/lose situation when it comes to regulation. It's not something he should try to dwell on there's just an enormous amount of data to contradict anything he comes up with and in the end folks are going to believe what's in front of them. The University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index does not work in his favor, and his clarification that the American worker is the "fundamental" to which he is referring is just crazy. He said what he said with no recognition of the staples that are the fundamentals of a healthy economy. The GOP's Convention speeches are coming back to haunt them as the message of that day doesn't carry forward to the agenda necessary to manage today. Leaving jobs, unemployment, debt and deficit spending out as themes to appeal to the middle class kind of makes them appear cold in retrospect.

[walidm]

Originally Posted by sanrene

It appears all those contribution to the democrats have held off the stricter regulations the Bush admin wanted to implement 5 years ago - killed by the democrats.

Wasn't 2003 the year the Congress got in a huge fight and abandoned and allowed to expire the pay as you go rules? You're right 2003 is important, it looks like it was a banner year for abandoning everything we knew to be right and just threw caution and common sense to the wind.

HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE PAY-AS-YOU-GO PROPOSAL WOULD
EXEMPT ALL TAX CUTS AND MAKE A MOCKERY OF EFFORTS TO RESTORE FISCAL DISCIPLINE[/SIZE]
" Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan underscored the inadequacy of an entitlement-only approach to pay-as-you-go in a recent congressional hearing, where he stated that the rules should apply to “both taxes and spending,” including extensions of the tax cuts enacted in recent years."Source


Bush tax cut plan a fiscal fairy tale
Thursday, May 29, 2003

"The tax-cut package will be paid for with more federal borrowing, a long-abandoned pay-as-you-go concept that will soon push the national debt limit to almost $7.5 trillion. The cost to taxpayers of paying interest on the debt will be nearly $1 billion a day. Such reckless deficit spending was once derided by critics as "voodoo economics" -- something the president should know well because the term was coined by his father in his 1980 campaign against Ronald Reagan for the GOP presidential nomination."

Republican House moderates revolt over GOP budget (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/budget.ap/ - broken link)
2003

"We cannot support a budget resolution that reflects funding levels below the Bush administration's request and that fails to meet the needs of our domestic priorities, while reducing taxes by $1.4 trillion," the moderates wrote to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.


Budget Pork Explodes Under GOP
December 04, 2003

"Auctioning pork projects to the highest bidder reduces the number of merit-based grants for distribution by federal agencies, governors and mayors. These shortages induce Congress to expand these programs and then earmark those new funds as well. Consequently, the number of pork projects skyrocketed from under 2,000 five years ago to 9,362 in the 2003 budget. Total spending on pork projects has correspondingly
increased to over $23 billion."

What liberal organization is slamming current GOP practices compared to the more ethical approach of past, assumably Democratic-run Congresses? None other than the rightwing Heritage Foundation.

The congressional spending spree of the past few years is well-documented, and this year promises to be no different. Over the last four years, federal spending has increased from $16,000 per household to $20,000 per household, the highest level since World War II.[1]

[TigerLily24]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Would this be the same Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act named after Republican Texas Senator Phil Gramm, Republican Iowa Representative Jim Leach, and Republican Virginia Representative Tom Bliley?

Come on, now. If you are honest in your reading of history, you'd see that corporations were more or less able to purchase the legislation they desired in recent years, regardless of the party in power. GLB, the DMCA, etc.

That would be the one and only. Yes, Clinton signed the bill, however, it would have passed even if he had vetoed it. In those days, what Gramm wanted, Gramm got.

[TigerLily24]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

No, what I showed is that the department had the authority to issue directives, which negates your claim that requirements issued during the late 1990's were the responsibility of Congress.

I made this point earlier. Since what you say is accurate, and it was pretty clear that there would be negative fallout from these decisions, I can't help wondering why weren't they addressed by Cuomo's replacements (Mel Martinez and Alphonso Jackson) when Bush came into office?

It seems that Martinez didn't do too much before leaving to run for senator:
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/18/St...ugee__la.shtml

So how did his replacement do?

HUD Chief Inattentive To Crisis, Critics Say - washingtonpost.com

Perhaps he just had other things on his mind?

Jackson Resigns as HUD Secretary - washingtonpost.com