Showing posts with label 2010 election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010 election. Show all posts
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Controversy and Chaos: BARNEY FRANK HAS GOT TO GO!
Controversy and Chaos: BARNEY FRANK HAS GOT TO GO!: "Frank’s fingerprints were all over the financial fiasco The Wall Street meltdown was caused by “bad decisions that were made by people in t..."
BARNEY FRANK HAS GOT TO GO!
Frank’s fingerprints were all over the financial fiasco
The Wall Street meltdown was caused by “bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector,” Frank said; the country is in dire straits today “thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best.” And that philosophy goes “back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, ‘Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.’ ”
In fact, that isn’t what Reagan said. His actual words were: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing.
Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits — many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be — they weren’t the ones who “got us into this mess.” Barney Frank’s talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn’t wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so – or else.
The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and “redlining” because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to “meet the credit needs” of “low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.” Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this “subprime” lending by authorizing ever more “flexible” criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.
All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. “Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor,” the Fed’s guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as “valid income sources” to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.
As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. But it didn’t take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. “What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?” I asked in this space in 1995. “Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . . . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today’s self-congratulating bankers, politicians, and regulators plans to take the credit?”
Frank doesn’t. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that “these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” When the White House warned of “systemic risk for our financial system” unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Now that the bubble has burst and the “systemic risk” is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: “The private sector got us into this mess.” Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.
By Jeff Jacoby
http://controversyandchaos.com/
The Wall Street meltdown was caused by “bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector,” Frank said; the country is in dire straits today “thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best.” And that philosophy goes “back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, ‘Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.’ ”
Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits — many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be — they weren’t the ones who “got us into this mess.” Barney Frank’s talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn’t wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so – or else.
The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and “redlining” because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to “meet the credit needs” of “low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.” Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this “subprime” lending by authorizing ever more “flexible” criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.
All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. “Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor,” the Fed’s guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as “valid income sources” to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.
As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. But it didn’t take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. “What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?” I asked in this space in 1995. “Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . . . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today’s self-congratulating bankers, politicians, and regulators plans to take the credit?”
Frank doesn’t. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that “these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” When the White House warned of “systemic risk for our financial system” unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Now that the bubble has burst and the “systemic risk” is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: “The private sector got us into this mess.” Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.
By Jeff Jacoby
http://controversyandchaos.com/
Friday, October 1, 2010
Controversy and Chaos: WHY EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO GET BEHIND THE TEA PAR...
Controversy and Chaos: WHY EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO GET BEHIND THE TEA PAR...: "The purpose of the Tea Party movement has been to stop wasteful government spending, excessive taxation, and overreliance on regulatory bure..."
WHY EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO GET BEHIND THE TEA PARTY & VOTE OUT THE BUMS!
The purpose of the Tea Party movement has been to stop wasteful government spending, excessive taxation, and overreliance on regulatory bureaucracies. Please forward this blog to as many people as you can and GET INVOLVED!
Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.
Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.
Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.
Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.
Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.
Demand a Balanced Budget Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.
Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution.
Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning.
6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.
Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.
Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs.
Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.
Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.
http://controversyandchaos.com
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| Support the Tea Party & VOTE OUT THE BUMS! |
Contract with America
We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.
Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.
Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.
Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.
Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.
Demand a Balanced Budget Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.
Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning.
6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.
Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs.
Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.
Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.
If you would like to learn more or get involved to TAKE BACK AMERICA go to: http://www.teapartypatriots.org/
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Controversy and Chaos: DEMOCRATS ARE THE PARTY OF SCREW YOU: OBAMACARE
Controversy and Chaos: DEMOCRATS ARE THE PARTY OF SCREW YOU: OBAMACARE: "Democrats are the Party of Screw You: Obamacare Many of the Democrats who are either up for re-election or are seeking political office for..."
DEMOCRATS ARE THE PARTY OF SCREW YOU: OBAMACARE
Democrats are the Party of Screw You: Obamacare
Many of the Democrats who are either up for re-election or are seeking political office for the first time are claiming that they oppose much of Obamacare and plan to fix it if elected/re-elected.
Don’t believe any of this rhetoric. There is an ulterior motive to these specious statements: to win election by whatever it takes. After that, expect most of these Democrats to toe the party line, either by coercion or personal convictions, and therefore not repeal Obamacare.
http://saveyourrights.com
1. ObamaCare makes health insurance MORE expensive for Americans:
c. On September 8th the Wall Street Journal reported that health insurance companies are having to increase health insurance premiums by up to 20 percent next year, in part to comply with new federal mandates resulting from the Democrats’ health overhaul.
d. Today, the New York Times reported that in California, rates could increase as much as 19 percent for individual policies, while in Connecticut, due to the new law, some premiums could rise as much as 22.9 percent.
2. ObamaCare forces millions of Americans out of the health plan they have and like:
a. Obama Administration officials predict the Democrats’ health law could force up to 117 million Americans to lose their current health plan.
b. The effects are already being seen, as residents in Virginia have already lost access to one health care plan and many residents in Maine could lose theirs as well.
c. ObamaCare encourages employers to eliminate worker benefits.
3. ObamaCare discourages employers from hiring new workers, increasing wages, or retaining existing employees:
a. The Democrats’ health care law slams employers with job killing taxes and increased costs, providing less money to small businesses to hire new workers and retain existing ones.
b. Leading employer groups such as National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as Business Roundtable & Business Council call the Democrats’ health care law “destructive” and “dangerous” due to the fact it has created massive economic uncertainty, will increase the cost of doing business, and does nothing to control the cost of health care.
c. With unemployment continuing to hover close to 10 percent, Congress should work to ease the heavy burdens our small businesses have been facing. But buried in their health care law, Democrats included a $17 billion tax increase that requires small businesses to file a 1099 tax form for every business to which they make total payments in excess of $600 for all goods and services during the tax year. According to NFIB, “at $74 an hour, tax paperwork is the most expensive paperwork burden placed on small businesses by the federal government.”
4. ObamaCare jeopardizes seniors’ health care:
a. The Obama Administration’s own actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated the Medicare cuts contained in the Democrats’ health law could threaten seniors’ access to care and cause providers to stop treating Medicare patients.
b. 7.4 million Medicare beneficiaries who would have been enrolled in a Medicare health plan will lose their plan because of the $206 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage (MA) in the Democrats’ health law. Next year alone, 1.2 million seniors will be forced out of their MA plan or prescription drug plan.
c. Obama Administration officials predict 9 out of 10 seniors will lose their employer-sponsored retiree drug coverage and seniors enrolled in a MA plan can expect to see their benefits slashed by $816 a year in just a few short years as a result of the Democrats’ health law.
d. CBO has estimated that Medicare prescription drug coverage premiums will increase by 9 percent as a result of the Democrats’ health law.
5. Massive tax increases:
a. The Democrats’ health care law contains $570 billion in tax increases and a dozen violations of the President’s pledge to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 if married.
b. Through the individual mandate, Americans are forced to buy health insurance they may not want or be able to afford. The Democrats’ bill empowers the IRS to verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage, and, if you fail to prove you have purchased “minimum essential coverage,” the IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,085 or 2.5 percent of your income (whichever is greater). The IRS will need to hire up to 16,500 new employees to enforce this and other tax increases in the bill.
6. The cost of ObamaCare keeps growing & growing and America can’t afford it:
a. Obama Administration’s own actuaries predict that the Democrats’ new health law will increase national health care spending by over $300,000,000,000.
b. CBO predicts that federal health care-related spending could increase by an additional $115,000,000,000 or more over 10 years to just to implement the Democrats’ new health care law.
c. The Obama Administration recently asked Congressional Democrats for $250 million in additional funding to “increase the primary care health workforce” after finally admitting their new law will lead to a shortage of doctors.
By Dave Camp, Ranking Member Committee on Ways & Means Republicans
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov
http://controversyandchaos.com
Many of the Democrats who are either up for re-election or are seeking political office for the first time are claiming that they oppose much of Obamacare and plan to fix it if elected/re-elected.
Don’t believe any of this rhetoric. There is an ulterior motive to these specious statements: to win election by whatever it takes. After that, expect most of these Democrats to toe the party line, either by coercion or personal convictions, and therefore not repeal Obamacare.
Only the Republicans can be trusted to attempt to repeal or defund Obamacare.
Vote Republican in November if you want to fight Obamacare … and to take back our country from the arrogant, elitist and radical Democratic politicians.
Vote Republican in November if you want to fight Obamacare … and to take back our country from the arrogant, elitist and radical Democratic politicians.
http://saveyourrights.com
THE TOP SIX REASONS TO REPEAL OBAMACARE
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| Vote for Tea Party candidates this November! |
a. After having proclaimed, “If any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that’s not a bill I can support. It’s going to have to control costs,” President Obama has recently admitted that he “knew” the Democrats’ health care law would increase costs.
b. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the Democrats’ health law will increase premiums for millions of families by up to $2,100 on average, by 2016. This means that coverage will be $2,100 more expensive than it would have been if Congress had just left the current system alone.c. On September 8th the Wall Street Journal reported that health insurance companies are having to increase health insurance premiums by up to 20 percent next year, in part to comply with new federal mandates resulting from the Democrats’ health overhaul.
d. Today, the New York Times reported that in California, rates could increase as much as 19 percent for individual policies, while in Connecticut, due to the new law, some premiums could rise as much as 22.9 percent.
2. ObamaCare forces millions of Americans out of the health plan they have and like:
a. Obama Administration officials predict the Democrats’ health law could force up to 117 million Americans to lose their current health plan.
b. The effects are already being seen, as residents in Virginia have already lost access to one health care plan and many residents in Maine could lose theirs as well.
c. ObamaCare encourages employers to eliminate worker benefits.
3. ObamaCare discourages employers from hiring new workers, increasing wages, or retaining existing employees:
a. The Democrats’ health care law slams employers with job killing taxes and increased costs, providing less money to small businesses to hire new workers and retain existing ones.
b. Leading employer groups such as National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as Business Roundtable & Business Council call the Democrats’ health care law “destructive” and “dangerous” due to the fact it has created massive economic uncertainty, will increase the cost of doing business, and does nothing to control the cost of health care.
c. With unemployment continuing to hover close to 10 percent, Congress should work to ease the heavy burdens our small businesses have been facing. But buried in their health care law, Democrats included a $17 billion tax increase that requires small businesses to file a 1099 tax form for every business to which they make total payments in excess of $600 for all goods and services during the tax year. According to NFIB, “at $74 an hour, tax paperwork is the most expensive paperwork burden placed on small businesses by the federal government.”
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| Vote out the Dems that passed OBMACARE! |
a. The Obama Administration’s own actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated the Medicare cuts contained in the Democrats’ health law could threaten seniors’ access to care and cause providers to stop treating Medicare patients.
b. 7.4 million Medicare beneficiaries who would have been enrolled in a Medicare health plan will lose their plan because of the $206 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage (MA) in the Democrats’ health law. Next year alone, 1.2 million seniors will be forced out of their MA plan or prescription drug plan.
c. Obama Administration officials predict 9 out of 10 seniors will lose their employer-sponsored retiree drug coverage and seniors enrolled in a MA plan can expect to see their benefits slashed by $816 a year in just a few short years as a result of the Democrats’ health law.
d. CBO has estimated that Medicare prescription drug coverage premiums will increase by 9 percent as a result of the Democrats’ health law.
5. Massive tax increases:
a. The Democrats’ health care law contains $570 billion in tax increases and a dozen violations of the President’s pledge to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 if married.
b. Through the individual mandate, Americans are forced to buy health insurance they may not want or be able to afford. The Democrats’ bill empowers the IRS to verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage, and, if you fail to prove you have purchased “minimum essential coverage,” the IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,085 or 2.5 percent of your income (whichever is greater). The IRS will need to hire up to 16,500 new employees to enforce this and other tax increases in the bill.
6. The cost of ObamaCare keeps growing & growing and America can’t afford it:
a. Obama Administration’s own actuaries predict that the Democrats’ new health law will increase national health care spending by over $300,000,000,000.
b. CBO predicts that federal health care-related spending could increase by an additional $115,000,000,000 or more over 10 years to just to implement the Democrats’ new health care law.
c. The Obama Administration recently asked Congressional Democrats for $250 million in additional funding to “increase the primary care health workforce” after finally admitting their new law will lead to a shortage of doctors.
By Dave Camp, Ranking Member Committee on Ways & Means Republicans
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov
http://controversyandchaos.com
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