Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, March 07, 2009 2:17:16 PM
Congressman Barney Frank says he wants some of those responsible for
our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. And we couldn't agree
more. First up in the court dock: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
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Even by the extraordinarily loose standards of Congress, it takes
some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he'll seek
prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crunch and for
what he called "a strongly empowered systemic risk regulator."
For
Frank, perhaps more than any single individual in private or public
life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent
bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical
exaggeration
Still, from the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside
Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie.
Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other
Democrats) stood athwart efforts by regulators, Congress and the White
House to get the runaway housing market under control.
He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another
attempt bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank responded it wasn't
needed because there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."
In 2002, Frank nixed reforms again. See a pattern here?
Even after federal regulators discovered in 2003 that Fannie and
Freddie executives had overstated earnings by as much as $10.6 billion
in order to boost bonuses, Frank didn't miss a beat.
President Bush pushed for what the New York Times then called "the
most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry
since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago."
Whatever the case, his conflicts are obvious and outrageous, and his
refusal to countenance reforms of Fannie and Freddie contributed
mightily to today's meltdown. If you're looking for a culprit in the
meltdown to prosecute, no one fits the bill better than Frank.