Democrats, naturally, tend to blame the government for these failures. You canít blame them really. They view the world from the perspective that the government giveth, and the government taketh away.
As a Republicans, I am big on personal responsibility. I canít help but think about the millions of people who applied for mortgages that they could not afford. And of the thousands of people who reviewed those mortgages before approving them. We all know someone who has bought a house that didnít quite fit. What were all of these people thinking?
Once all of these mortgages were closed, lenders began trading them like Pokemon cards. Investments and profits were sustained by balancing those cards. And that house of cards has come crashing down.
Nancy Pelosi is calling for an investigation into the financial meltdown but is basically accusing President Bush of causing it. Obama, who is offering no answer to the situation, was the second largest recipient of contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
An undecided voter may want to ask, ìWhich candidate foresaw the credit crisis and tried to do something about it?î As it turns out, John McCain did. He made the following remarks on May 25, 2006:
ì[T]his week Fannie Maeís regulator reported that the companyís quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were ëillusions deliberately and systematically createdí by the companyís senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal. The report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives . . . The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
ìThe report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulatorís examination of the companyís accounting problems . . . These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform. For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [The] report this week does nothing to ease these concerns [but] solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. . . . If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.î
Blame is a dangerous game.
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