Quite a letter. Wonder what might have happened if McCain and the other GOP senators who signed this letter urging immediate action re Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hoping to formulate a policy to avoid economic catastrophe, had been worked with?
Sen. John McCain’s 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below.
McCain’s letter — signed by nineteen other senators — said that it was “…vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]…operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either…should fail.”
Sen. Obama did not sign the letter, nor did any other Democrat.
The May 2006 letter is here.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Unfortunately, although this should be a positive issue for McCain, I just don’t see how he can use it when the Republicans held all the marbles for 6 of the last 8 years.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
[...] I visited the Anchoress this morning for happy thoughts, and found this. OK, I see goodness and fruitfulness in this. It counts as a happy thought. Category: [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
What tim maguire said.
If the leaders of the GOP Congresses had forced floor votes (for a bill or for cloture) on GSE reform, the current protestations would not sound like after-the-fact CYA.
It took malfeasance and gutlessness to create the FM&FM disaster. The Democrats provided the malfeasance. The Republicans provided the gutlessness.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
[...] From the Anchoress (doesn’t seem to matter): McCain on Fannie 2006 [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Perhaps a metaphor for the bizarre world we live in today.
Republicans tried to lead the way, following the Bush Administrations sincere concern about Fanny-Freddie exhibited since 2001, and yet today Republicans are being handed the blame for the chaos?
The evidence of the enormous negligence of the partisan Media, which continues to push American fashion - as well as the Global conception, in the most misguided manner.
As much as they help their political affiliation, the Democrat Liberal Party, what happens when they are wrong?
We paid for the deceitful negligence on 9-11, after the Democrat Partisans lied, cheated, distorted for 8 long years, helping those they favored in positions of power who foolishly ignored the rise of Islamic Radical Terrorism.
It is simply pathetic.
Even today, we have found some vandals have left some smear about Republicans being “slavery”. Yet, the history of the Party is the exact opposite, being created primarily for the wonderful abolitionist movement, and even led to help pass the Civil Rights Laws in the USA, which most of the Democrat Party opposed.
It is shameful, to see such vapid bigotry, political ignorance in Our Free Nation.
And karma suggests, a poor future in return of such mindless nature.
October 12th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
What happened in 2006 is simply irrelevant, and who said what about Fannie Mae when is irrelevant. The people who hung this around McCain’s neck are the Republican representatives who balked at the first “bailout” bill.
Why? Two reasons. To prevent financial panics, governments must act swiftly and speak with a unified voice, assuring markets that they are in control. The recalcitrant representatives gave the markets exactly the opposite message, that the government was divided and not capable of managing the problems–the panic was the result.
Since the defeat of the bill was on a Friday and the panic started the next Monday, even the dullest of the public could see the cause and effect relationship. So whatever the whys and wherefores before this, this election is permanently locked into the following equation: GOP=Financial Panic.
Because McCain had made such a big deal of showing his “leadership” by “suspending his campaign”, he put his own reputation in tandem with that first “bailout” bill. When it blew up in his face, he embedded still another equation into the race: John McCain=Failure To Lead. No matter how much “character” McCain purports to have that Obama doesn’t, he certainly isn’t “ready to lead” if he steps up so authoritatively to do so, and then falls spectacularly on his nose.
No matter how bad that bill was, or how much pressure they were getting from constituents, the House GOP caucus should have sucked it up and gotten on board. By forcing the markets to “prove” that they were in trouble, they ended up owning the result.
Moreover, McCain was their guy. By cutting him off at the knees on an issue of “leadership”, they have very likely made the next four years far less pleasant and productive for themselves.
And, in the end, the biggest loser was George Bush and his “legacy”. For this was also a matter of his chickens coming home to roost. From 2002 to 2006 the relationship of the White House to the Republican controlled Congress was all take and no give. GWB asked everything of them and did absolutely nothing for them. When it seemed that Republican control of our government was unshakable for the forseeable future, the legislators fell into line because it was the only game in town.
But George Bush cultivated no credit balance with his own Republican legislators. So when it became a matter of what the President asked for, versus what the deluge of letters, e-mails, and phone calls were saying, it was no contest. His own party members hung Bush out to dry without a second thought.
By doing so, they elaborated this equation: The Bush Legacy=two unfinished wars, a mountain of government debt, the biggest transfer of wealth in human history away from the ordinary American public to the Middle East and the holders of energy stocks, and now a major financial panic and [perhaps] a worldwide Depression.
Maybe it isn’t “fair”, but that’s how politics works–what you did last week is of major importance, what you did two years ago isn’t.
October 12th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
The democrats blocked the republicans at every step of the way. They (the repubs) didn’t have enough votes to even get things out of committee to take to the house floor, and the times when something might have gotten through, there were not enough republicans to force a vote. John McCain has been on this issue for years, and President Bush, himself, first raised the red flag about some of the Fannie & Freddie practices in April of 2001, soon after he took office, and apparently took note of the direction of things 18 times in the previous year or so. The dems have done the same thing to block even bringing judicial nominees’ names to the floor for a vote. Without a veto-proof majority in Congress, there are limits as to what can be done.
October 12th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Speaking of lobbyists, the ones that McCain says he wants to do without.
Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Rick Davis nearly 2 Million Dollars.
EDITED TO ADMIT LINK - ADMIN
Longtime journalist Sam Donaldson placed blame for the Fannie Mae crisis at the feet of deregulation and singled out former McCain advisor Phil Gramm: “We deregulated in the beginning of ‘99 and 2000 the banking industry, Phil Gramm and others, I think that Obama ad is correct. He was one of the prime movers. Now we’re going to have to clean that up at great expense.” He then derided, “So I mean, I think for John McCain, though, who has the heaviest burden here, since he voted for all the deregulation, for him to now say he would be the toughest re-regulator is kind of a hard thing to swallow.”
[Once more with feeling. It is very easy to make links, they are so easy I can do them, the instructions are here. -admin]
October 14th, 2008 at 9:38 am
[...] jag about how awful this all is and what it says about Obama’s character. I could talk about the stark differences between Obama and McCain on key issues… but I’m not going to do that. For one, others are doing it better. I begin my open [...]