Barney Frank
Massachusetts Democrat congressman Barney Frank has called on government mortgage lenders Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac to be abolished instead of being reformed and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) should be completely self-financing.
“They should be abolished,” Frank said during an interview on the Fox Business Network. “The only question is what do you put in their place.”
“There is no more hybrid private-public,” the chairman of the House Financial Services committee said. “If we want to subsidize housing then we could do it upfront and let the budget be clear about that.”
Fannie and Freddie were privately-owned and government-subsidized until 2008, when the Bush Administration took them over to save them from collapse when housing prices crashed through the floor. The two companies have gotten US$150 billion in taxpayer bailout money.
Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA now guarantee 90% of new American home mortgages.
The liberal Democrat also said the government should not have a policy that guarantees home ownership to everyone.
“There were people in this society who for economic and, frankly, social reasons can’t and shouldn’t be homeowners,” Frank said. “I think we should, particularly, stop this assumption that you put everybody into home ownership,” he said.
“Public policy has been too much to try to push people into home ownership.”
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Thats a 180! Wasn’t Barney singing how indispensable Fannie and Freddie are not too long ago?
Abolish Barney Frank!!
I’m just curious about what his homo lover said to him that night in bed after he heard that statement ?
Elmendorf was on Washington Journal this morning – projecting that unemployment will be up until about 2014. But much more intersting was the segment with Matt Taibbi on the FINREG bill. You ought to watch that segment and read his article in Rolling Stone. We have 2000 Wall St lobbyists and their lapdogs doing back room deals with Reid and Dodd to completely gut any changes to the TooBigToFail and changes to Rating Agencies and dealing with the DERIVATIVES.None of these people have any idea of the EFFECT of this bill – a very bad sign. The end result is Welfare for Wall St and GANGSTER ECONOMICS. He mentioned that AIG was regulated as if it were an S&L thrift !!!!! And the whole thing was OBFUSCATED to deliberately keep the people out of this discussion. There were 2000 big lobbyists versus 60 volunteers. Guess who won. I read John Talbott’s book on 86 Lies on Wall St – Matt really fills in some crucial connections. Kudos to Matt. As long as this country is being run by and for criminals, you can talk all you like about unleashing the economy – it’s a bunch of eye-wash. Personally I am fed up with busting my hump so someone else can drive around in their yacht. It is BEYOND crony capitalism and is now simply ‘gangster capitalism’. The Senate will not even do anything about stamping AAA on crap and selling it as prime steak. The republicans are idiots and the democrats are criminals. The only reason for the trillions of bucks these clowns get is because the keep us in the dark. That is exactly what Norbert Weiner said about the stock market long ago, and it is still true. You can replace all these critters -and they will do the same thing.