Hennessy's View

In 2004, John McCain cosponsored legislation to clean up the criminal fraud of Obama advisor Franklin Raines’s Fannie Mae.  The WSJ has a round up of key Democrats defending Raines’s fraud, calling the regulators and auditors liars, and telling McCain to stuff his reforms where sun shineth not.

 
Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): I worry, frankly, that there’s a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. . . .

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:

Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. . . .

 

Rep. Waters: However, I have sat through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Housing is the economic engine of our economy, and in no community does this engine need to work more than in mine. With last week’s hurricane and the drain on the economy from the war in Iraq, we should do no harm to these GSEs. We should be enhancing regulation, not making fundamental change.

 

Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Everything in the 1992 act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. . . .

Bastards all.  Dirty, thieving bastards.  Barney Frank should be in prison.  He should not be allowed to speak or vote on this issue.  The people of his district in Boston should be ashamed of the $700 billion he helped heap on the back of taxpayers.  

And the biggest per annum recipient of these crimes was Barack Obama.  Here is a breakdown of the top recipients of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac kickbacks by annual receipts:

Average Fannie/Freddie Donations by Years in Congress

What did the Republican have to say?  

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.):

Mr. Chairman, what we’re dealing with is an astounding failure of management and board responsibility, driven clearly by self interest and greed. And when we reference this issue in the context of — the best we can say is, “It’s no Enron.” Now, that’s a hell of a high standard.

Well, we can no longer say “It’s no Enron,” can we?  Franklin Raines makes Kenneth Lay look like Mother Teresa.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Washington, DC–As economists and taxpayers began to dissect the Economic Rescue bill passed by the U. S. Senate tonight, many experts were surprised to learn that tax payers are in line for trillions of reward points.

Reward points are a popular perk used by banks, hotels, airlines, and retailers to encourage consumers to use their services and credit cards.  What legislators failed to realize when authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to assume billions of dollars of bad debt was that the reward points associated with those loans transfer to the U. S. government.

“If we’d have known this from the outset, my guess is that public support for the resolution would have been overwhelming,” said Missouri’s junior Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO).  

House Democrats immediately demanded that the majority of the of the points go to low income families, single mothers, minorities, and, if anything’s left over, veterans.

“President Bush wants to give all these points to the wealthiest one percent of Americans just because they pay half the taxes,” said New York Congressman Charles Rangell (D-NY).    ”Well they got rich because of all the points given to them by the Wall Street fat cats who caused this crisis.  Let’s give these points to my people and let them go to Jamaica for a week.”

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that he does not plan to personally keep any of the 98,708,289,098,133,289 points and miles that will immediately be transferred to his name if the House passes the bill. “I have plenty of miles with the airlines, and government rules prohibit me from using them, anyway,” Paulson told Hennessy’s View.

To deal with administrtion of the points and creation of merchandise catalogs and travel packages, the Bush Administration asked Congressional leaders for emergency authorization to create the world’s largest rewards management program.

“These points will begin expiring soon, depriving millions of Americans their rightful free gifts and memorable vacations in exciting destinations throughout the world–unless Congress acts immediately and resolutely.”

Illinois Senator Barack Obama reportedly phoned the McCain campaign offering to pool his share of the points with McCain’s as a gesture of national unity.  ”There’s an old Kenyan saying,” Obama told supporters in Boone’s Lick, Missouri,  ”‘One man’s points will get you to Nairobi, but one man’s points pooled with another man’s points can take you all the way to Washington DC.’”  A campaign spokesman asked to explain Obama’s remarks said he had “no idea” what the Senator was talking about.  

The points can be redeemed for select merchandise or travel and cannot be combined with any other discount or offer.  Employees of the federal government, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, Bear Sterns, and any other defunct bank are ineligible.  Many of the points are subject to travel blackout dates and expiration.  The IRS recommends checking with your tax advisor regarding tax liability incurred by accepting the points.

Popularity: 1% [?]