Another Nail in the Coffin of the Bush Legacy

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423963,00.html

White House Defends Federal Takeover of AIG
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

WASHINGTON —

The White House gave a newly nuanced description Wednesday of the U.S. economy, calling it a mixed picture and saying it ultimately will weather the current turmoil.

Press secretary Dana Perino, President George W. Bush’s chief spokeswoman, also defended the extraordinary federal takeover of sinking insurance giant American International Group Inc., while not ruling out further private-sector bailouts by Washington.

Perino told reporters that help for other endangered corporations would be considered by the government on a “case-by-case basis.”

Among those pleading for Washington’s help, for instance, is the struggling U.S. auto industry, which has suffered massive losses but remains a backbone of the economy. A bill before Congress would give the companies $25 billion in federal loans, a program established but not funded under an energy bill passed last year. Perino said the White House would not comment on that prospect until Congress decides whether to go ahead with approving the money.

You are doing a Hellava job Brownie:

Perino refused to repeat the White House’s standard line about the U.S. economy, often used by Bush, who has said that its “fundamentals are strong.” Republican presidential candidates John McCain used that phrase Monday, earning him ridicule from Democratic opponent Barack Obama as being out of touch. McCain later clarified that he meant that the fundamental strength of the American worker remained strong.

With those accusations and counteraccusations swirling in an election-campaign environment, Perino suggested Wednesday that this assessment no longer stands.

“It’s not clear-cut,” she said, because of a proliferation of both positive and negative economic indicators, sometimes coming on the same day.

“We are in a position of strength to be able to deal with this crisis,” Perino said. “It will take us awhile.”

As recently as July 31, Bush said: “I believe the foundations of this economy are strong.” In an Aug. 2 radio address, Bush prodded Congress to expand the energy supply so that “our economy remains the strongest, most vibrant and most hopeful in the world.”

In the most far-reaching intervention into the private sector ever for the Federal Reserve, the government stepped in Tuesday to rescue American International Group Inc. with an $85 billion injection of taxpayer money. The government will get almost an 80 percent stake in the company.

Perino framed it as another move to protect the economy and save people from further harm.

Given AIG’s size and scope, the possible failure of the company appeared to pose a greater risk than the $85 billion loan, she said. But while Perino said the terms require taxpayers to be paid back first, when asked whether taxpayers may not get their money back at all, she said, “That is true.”

Bush agreed with the loan for AIG at the White House on Tuesday after being presented with a recommendation from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke during a meeting of economic advisers. Perino said it is more appropriate to describe Bush’s role as consulting on the move rather than approving it.

She said she understands why Americans would be confused that the government would be willing to put taxpayer money at risk for some companies and not others, and that putting federal money into the private sector might be seen as at odds with Bush’s conservative, free-market economic philosophy.

“We are dealing with very challenging times,” Perino told reporters. “You have a government that is willing to lead, act where appropriate, and govern to make sure that we limit broader financial harm to the economy.”

The president has been silent about the market turmoil since Monday. He canceled previously announced plans to talk about it on Tuesday, and Perino said he would not be heard from on the topic on Wednesday, either.

Perino said the president is reluctant to hold a news conference because he believes reporters would try to draw him into the daily back-and-forth between the Democratic and Republican candidates to replace him and that that would be inappropriate.

“I grant you, you haven’t heard from him in a while,” she said.

Bush has not held a full news conference in two months. His last formal question-and-answer session was abbreviated and permitted only limited questioning more than a month ago in Seoul, South Korea.

And the last time he took any questions from reporters was on Sept. 7, in a brief interview with Fox News Channel’s "Fox & Friends."

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Joey, I’m not defending the administration because I think it only delays the inevitable but if you think an Obama administration would have done any less you need to come up for air.

Maybe this little list will help you see that. I guess you get what you pay for.:wink:

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Not, Bush.

Carter pushed the Community Recovery Act which was heavily enforced by Clinton (hey, you want a bank merger? Show us how many poor people (i.e., people who can’t actually pay back the loan) you gave mortgages to) and Fannie and Freddy kept bad books (when they were run by a former Obama advisor.)

Oh, and BTW: When Obama was working as a community organizer, for ACORN, his salary came through a grant under this act.

Meanwhile, McCain was calling for reform of Freddy and Fannie as far back as 2005.

Guess some people are noty interested in looking any father than their own agenda.

Here it is, all, for you. Laied out and reserched. Check and verify for yourself.

BTW, Joe: It’s a video, so you won’t have any throuble reading it.

http://townhall.com/video/TheFivewithAmandaCarpenter/1450_091708Five

Hope this helps;

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**
But isn’t it funny how our watchdog media have missed
these two stories?** Hmmm.

BUT AT THE SAME TIME …

This was all confirmed by Rush Limbaugh today… Funny.

McCain was trying to reform the corruption, while Obama was milking it for big bucks. :mrgreen:

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George W.'s legacy has yet to be written. It is pretty bad for the Pres now. His approval rating is only about 3 times better than that of our Congress.

It all boils down to Iraq. If they end up like S. Korea, Germany, or Japan (other countries we attacked)… George W. will go down as one of the best Presidents we ever had.

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Germany and Japan either attacked us and or declared war on us first, and North Korea attacked South Korea to start that war.

Not even close Nick.

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And Sadahm attacked his own citizens with chemical weapons of mass destruction.

I’d say that is pretty close.

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No… the U.S. did not like what the Germans were doing to our buddies in Europe,
so we picked a fight with them.

If you think all our wars have been after someone punched us in the nose, you
may want to read behind the stories you have heard.

By the time any war starts, it has been well under way for some time.

BTW… radical Islam has declared war on the U.S. for some time now.
They have been killing our people all over the world.

New maps have already been drawn up for the parking lots, malls and burger
kings that will be built in the middle east.

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Nice article John but it does not say the US decalred War on Germany first in WWII. :wink: Because that is not how it happened.

Perhaps you would be better off sticking to the god talk. :stuck_out_tongue:

Now that was just an easy reason why the bs fight in Iraq in no way compares to ANY of the conflicts Nick mentioned.

There are many more reasons, but if you can’t even get historical dates correct, the other reasons will be lost on you.:shock: :mrgreen:

**

**

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Read my post again very slowly before you comment. :mrgreen:

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And with that you demonstrate the shallowness of your argument.:frowning:

You:

Ignore all the violated U.N. resolutions.

Ignore Saddam’s attempts to control significant portions of the worlds oil supplies.

Ignore the data and conclusions of numerous intelligence agencies.

Ignore the atrocities committed by Saddam and his willingness to use WMD.

Ignore the world, congressional and public support for the action.

Your attempt to rewrite history to your own liking makes me think you live somewhere where it is still prior to 9/11/2001:roll:

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Attacking other countries, premptively, has a long U.S. history. Jefferson, the so-called Father of the Dems, started our first war by premptively attacking the Barbury Pirates. We also premptively attacked in the Mexican-American and Spanich-American wars.

Also, Truman had almost as low approval ratings, but he is now being lionized.

JFK was very polular, but is legacy defines him as not as perfect as everyone used to think (started and escalated Vietnam, Affairs, etc). Don’t get me wrong, he also did good stuff (lowered tax rates from 94% to 71%, just like Reagan and Bush have).

You need at least 40 years to gain some perspective

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Of course, right after… Drill Here, Drill Now. Decker is once again speaking out of both sides of his face in a vain attempt to sound wise.

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At least he tries:p

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JB, do you ever do home inspections? Seems all I ever see from you are political rants.

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Thanks, Joe, for agreeing with me.

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What does it matter to what I do, want to fight… bring it on.

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And Western nations have been at war with radical Muslims for a long long time.

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A Democratic Congress Tries To Fix What It Broke

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Regulation: As the financial crisis spreads, denials on Capitol Hill grow more shrill. Blame an aloof President Bush, greedy Wall Street, risky capitalism — anybody but those in Congress who wrote the banking rules.
Read More: Election 2008 | Iraq

Such denials won’t hold against the angry facts banging on their doors. The only question is whether the guilty party can keep up the barricade until Election Day.

A visibly annoyed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected suggestions that Democrats share blame for the meltdown. “No,” she snapped at reporters who dared ask.

Stick to our narrative, she scolded: The bursting of the housing bubble was another story of market failure and deregulation.
“The American people are not protected from the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,” she said, while calling for investigations of the industry.

**Only, the risk-taking was her idea — and the idea of all the other Democrats, along with a handful **of Republicans, who over the past 30 years have demonized lenders as racist and passed regulation after regulation pressuring them to make more loans to unqualified borrowers in the name of diversity.

They were the ones who screamed — “REDLINING!” — and sent banks scurrying for cover in low-income neighborhoods, where they have been forced to lower long-held industry standards for judging creditworthiness to make the subprime loans.

If they don’t comply, they are threatened with stiff penalties under the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, a law that forces banks to make home loans to people with poor credit risks.

No fewer than four federal banking regulatory agencies are responsible for enforcing the law. They subject lenders to racial litmus tests and issue regular report cards, the industry’s dreaded “CRA rating.”
The more branches that lenders put in poor neighborhoods, and the more loans they make there, the better their rating. Those lenders with low ratings can not only be fined, but also blocked from mergers and other business transactions needed to expand.

The regulation grew to monstrous proportions during the Clinton administration, obsessed as it was with multiculturalism. Amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s dramatically raised the amount of home loans to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers.

The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical “housing rights” groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama.

HUD, in turn, pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase more subprime mortgages, and Fannie and Freddie, in turn, donated to the campaigns of leading Democrats like Barney Frank and Pelosi who throttled investigations into fraud at the agencies.

Soon, investment banks such as Bear Stearns were aggressively hawking the securities as “guaranteed.” Wall Street’s pitch was that MBSs were as safe as Treasuries, but with a higher yield.

But they weren’t safe. Everyone in the subprime business — from brokers to lenders to banks to investment houses — absolved themselves of responsibility for ensuring the high-risk loans were good.

The mortgage lenders didn’t care, because they were going to sell the loans to other banks. The banks didn’t care, because they were going to repackage the loans as MBSs. The investors and traders didn’t care, because the MBSs were backed by Fannie and Freddie and their implicit government guarantees.

In other words, nobody up and down the line — from the branch office on main street to the high-rise on Wall Street — analyzed the risk of such ill-advised loans. But why should they? Everybody was just doing what the regulators in Washington wanted them to do.

So everybody won until everybody lost, including the minorities the government originally mandated the banks to serve.
The original culprits in all this were the social engineers who compelled banks to make the bad loans. The private sector has no business conducting social experiments on behalf of government. Its business is making profit. Period. So it did what it naturally does and turned the subprime social mandate into a lucrative industry.

Of course, it was a Ponzi scheme, because they weren’t allowed to play by their rules. The government changed the rules for risk.
In order to put low-income minorities into home loans, they were ordered to suspend lending standards that had served the banking industry well for centuries. No one wants to talk about it, so they just scapegoat Wall Street. Even John McCain has joined the Democrat chorus on this.

The FBI is now investigating 24 large mortgage lenders for alleged abuses. But who will investigate the pols and the lobbyists and the community agitators who made the bad decisions that ultimately forced businesses to make their bad decisions?

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The stinking Democrats engineer this disasters, then throw the blame on “This Administration” and they keep getting away with it. Absolutely Maddening! Now they keep shouting their support for the middle class, to gain total power. At this rate, there will not be any classes left, except the devastated and broke class! :mad::mad::mad::mad: