Republican Corner: America, Recover!

Posted on Friday, October 22, 2010 by Post Scripts
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By Steve Thompson, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party

Writers note: If you agree with this writer and want to help out, come to Chico Republican HQ, 896 East ave. this Saturday at 9:00am and help us take back our country.

In the roughly twenty years I’ve been politically involved, I can’t remember a time as pivotal as now. Darkness and misery on one side, prosperity and hope on the other. Perhaps we saw the warning signs (an overzealous environmental movement, tax and spend democrats creating deficits, socialism preached in the classrooms) but for so long so many of us thought it wouldn’t affect us personally. Until it did.

Look at where our country is right now. So far this year, 1 in 10 American homeowners missed a mortgage payment, 1 in 6 Americans are unemployed or left the workforce (BTW, if you’re a student out of college who can’t find work, they don’t count you as unemployed!), over 4 in 10 have been out of work for over six months, and 1 in 4 Americans have negative equity on their home mortgage. Pretty bleak proof that stimulus spending didn’t do much good, and chances are you know someone who is suffering right now as a result of the economy.


Negativity against positive solutions persists though. In California voters face tough battles to retake their government from entrenched bureaucrats. Despite a failing private sector and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, the liberal stranglehold on government remains strong. But even they know the end is near. They know that you can’t fund bloated government without business, and that drastic cuts will have to be made to maintain the draconian regulations they impose. They know and don’t care. There is no one less compassionate for the suffering of others than a left-wing activist. They know their policies are destroying our middle class and will drive people out of our state, and they don’t care. Truth be known they relish the pain, as they see America as over privileged and unjustly prosperous to begin with. This is truly the darkness in the heart of our country.

Despite all of this, optimism remains. The rising strength of the American TEA parties gives hope to middle class voters who have been disenfranchised by government elites. There is a growing sense that they can take back their country and restore sanity to our government’s policies. Nationwide it is likely that Republicans will seize control of Congress from the Democrats. Even the Senate may change parties this year. Voters will see the power of their vote actualized at the polls, and will know that they can make a difference.

We are making gains with voters not traditionally on our side. Prop 23 showed an 18 point advantage with latino voters. It makes sense as there’s not a whole lot of ethnicity in the environmental movement. The face of California’s environmental movement is an upper-income white guy trying to save the world from his condo in San Francisco. He likely won’t lose his financial job due to AB32. A lot of minorities in California will.

America is truly at a crossroads this year, and the impact of our decision means more now than ever before. The stakes are higher for all of us. Will we listen to those who despise American prosperity and wish to encumber our children with government debt and loss of personal freedom? Or, will we place our hope and faith in those who believe America’s best days are still in front of us, as the TEA parties have? I think the answer lies in the optimism of our fellow Americans, and not in their pessimism. Ronald Reagan called our nation a shining city on the hill. America is reaching for it once more.

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9 Responses to Republican Corner: America, Recover!

  1. Quentin Colgan says:
    Friday, October 22, 2010 at 11:00 am

    Yes!!!
    Let’s enlist the aid of the the corporations who got us into this mess to get us OUT of this mess!
    TEA party forever!
    Some people will believe ANYthing!

  2. Tina says:
    Friday, October 22, 2010 at 11:46 am

    Another drive by spit ball just doesn’t hack it Quentin.

    If you are going to assert that corporations “got us in to this mess” you’re going to have to be more specific, otherwise you just look like a stupid kid without an argument.

    Democrat polices and control and Fannie and Freddie are not only at the root of the current “mess” but a lot of those powerful Democrats got very rich in the process:

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/10/in-bed-with-fannie-and-freddie/

    Renewed scrutiny of the two institutions would remind the public that senior Democrats were in bed, sometimes literally, with Fannie and Freddie. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts spent a number of years blocking various attempts to regulate government-sponsored enterprises, famously saying that that he did not see any “safety and soundness” problems worthy of note. There was good reason for Mr. Frank to look the other way, given his history of close association with Herb Moses, Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives from 1991 to 1998.

    Many other top Democrats were friends with financial benefits from Fannie and Freddie. Franklin Raines, a former Carter- and Clinton-administration official, pocketed $90 million as Fannie Mae’s CEO – a figure bolstered by the agency’s overstated earnings. Former Clinton appointee Jamie Gorelick was paid $26 million as Fannie’s vice chairman. Veteran Democratic honcho Jim Johnson, who led Sen. John Kerry’s vice presidential search committee and temporarily led Mr. Obama’s veep search, enjoyed $21 million. Mr. Johnson later resigned from the Obama team when he was identified as a “friend of Angelo” – one of those who were given below-market loans directly by Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. Among other “friends of Angelo” were Mr. Raines, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Fannie Mae was the biggest buyer of the outrageously risky mortgages that proved to be Countrywide’s undoing.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423701,00.html

    Lehman Brothers collapse is traced back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two big mortgage banks that got a federal bailout a few weeks ago.

    Freddie and Fannie used huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs.

    A group called the Center for Responsive Politics keeps track of which politicians get Fannie and Freddie political contributions. The top three U.S. senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and No. 2 is Sen. Barack Obama.

    Now remember, he’s only been in the Senate four years, but he still managed to grab the No. 2 spot ahead of John Kerry decades in the Senate and Chris Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

    Fannie and Freddie have been creations of the congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people and, as it turns out, some people who couldn’t afford them.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

    Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.

    Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.

    But really, it isn’t. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.

    Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.

    In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn’t make the market, they became the market. Over the years, it added up to an enormous obligation. As of last June, Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments. Their large presence created an environment within which even mortgage-backed securities assembled by others could find a ready home.

    The problem was that the trillions of dollars in play were only low-risk investments if real estate prices continued to rise. Once they began to fall, the entire house of cards came down with them.

    Turning Point

    Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it’s hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.

    It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.

    Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission’s chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie’s position on the relevant accounting issue was not even “on the page” of allowable interpretations.

    Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a “world-class regulator” that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.

    Greenspan’s Warning

    The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”

    What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

    Different World

    If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

    But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

    That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: “It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.”

    Mounds of Materials

    Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

    But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

    Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

    Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

    http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/544048/201008171856/Fannies-And-Freddies-Fakeover.aspx

    In 1996, as part of Clinton housing policy, HUD required that 42% of Fannie’s and Freddie’s mortgage financing go to “underserved” borrowers with unproven or damaged credit.

    To help them meet that goal, HUD, their regulator, authorized them to relax their lending criteria.

    HUD also authorized them to buy subprime securities that included loans to uncreditworthy borrowers.

    Unhappy with the results despite Fannie and Freddie committing trillions in risky low-income loans HUD in 2000 raised its affordable-housing target again, this time to 50%.

    Fannie and Freddie e-mails confirm that executives then were under huge pressure to meet “HUD goals.”

    But as Orwell warned, whoever controls the present controls the past. And right now, the people who pushed Fannie and Freddie along with our entire financial system off the cliff in the name of “affordable housing” are running the show.

    Just look at some of the experts Geithner invited to his Potemkin summit. Like ex-Clinton aide Ellen Seidman, who became head of the Office of Thrift Supervision. She aggressively enforced Clinton’s beefed-up Community Reinvestment Act, which codified the “flexible” underwriting that Fannie and Freddie adopted.

    Seidman argued that Fannie’s and Freddie’s support for “low-income and minority communities” especially now amid a wave of foreclosures is “absolutely critical.” She wants government to take an even larger role in pushing housing for “underserved markets.”

    “Some people will believe ANYthing!”

    And some people won’t acknowledge the truth even when it’s obvious and right in front of them!

    Captcha: “enormous virmine”

    I’ll say!

  3. Clova says:
    Friday, October 22, 2010 at 12:10 pm

    Finally, Quentin made a statement I can agree with,”Some people will believe ANYthing.” Anyone, including Quentin, who can believe that other big corporations are not behind the No against Prop 23 will believe anything. The people behind the No vote are the ones buying big blades from China for the windmills, not from American suppliers because they have already killed those jobs. They are as big a business as any. The hypocracy behind the current adds is just unbearable. They have actually out spent the Yes vote by milions. The No vote kills more jobs than it can accomplish anything good.

  4. Pie Guevara says:
    Friday, October 22, 2010 at 1:04 pm

    How were we brought to these crossroads? Nice to see that Noonan gets it!

    http://tinyurl.com/TeaRescuesGOP

    P.S.

    Mr. Colgan, please get a grip.

    First it was the Tea Party was a bunch violence threatening militia types (ignore the actual violence committed by SEIU and MoveOn thugs after Obama said to get in their faces).

    Then it was they were a bunch of irrelevant old fogies.

    Then it was they were a bunch of redneck racists.

    Now the narrative is they are the dupes (or knowing operatives) of giant corporations.

    Quentin, if you keep on insisting to insult, denigrate, lie about, and alienate a significant voter segment in this town, I will have seriously consider withdrawing all my support for your campaign.

    Try showing that you can do what you have said is one of your most qualifying talents — thinking outside of the box. It is time for you to think out of the box you have so effectively boxed yourself in. Government is for all the people, not just some office holder who thinks that he/she has some political mandate by virtue of winning office.

    Just a suggestion, take it or leave it.

  5. Tina says:
    Friday, October 22, 2010 at 8:04 pm

    Clova, excellent point. Hope you continue to join us in our discussions.

  6. Post Scripts says:
    Saturday, October 23, 2010 at 8:28 am

    Speaking about people who will believe anything, I ventured into the Peace and Justice Center the other day to read what they were saying about Prop 23. I had trouble keeping a straight face as I read that Prop 23 will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, that it will crush Prop 32 and cost California billions in cleanup that the oil companies will foist on us! What baloney!!!! Their claims were totally unsupportable. They offered up zero evidence, yet they believed this alarmist rhetoric as gospel.

    There’s no attempt at trying to be real – they just pull abusrd numbers out of the thin air and their followers buy it without question!!! What a bunch of dolts.

    It would be funny if it were not so pathetic. (Jack)

  7. Pie Guevara says:
    Saturday, October 23, 2010 at 11:43 am

    Re: Jack’s comments on the “Peace and Justice Center”.

    I used to visit them a few times a year. Absurd is the correct term. These are the bottom of the class graduates of Commie Martyrs High School (Fire Sign Theater, “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers”) and they get their marching orders from a network of left wingnuts that includes Pacifica news. (Local affiliates KZFR radio and KIXE television.)

    David Horowitz knows precisely who these people are. (Like Horowitz, I was one once of them for a short stint in the early seventies.)

    Jack, does CPJC they still have posters up calling to free Philly cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal? He got a street named after him in Paris in 2006, ya know. Wow.

    I wonder if they still sit around the meeting room singing about how Anthony Watts should die of carbon monoxide poisoning after a good round of “Cum-Bah-Yah”.

    Pacifica entry on Discover The Networks
    http://tinyurl.com/243vuro

  8. AGE says:
    Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 11:29 pm

    Hey! Mind if I borrow the pic? I love it! And the article was awesome as well… but I would only do a link for that.

  9. Post Scripts says:
    Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 11:49 pm

    No problem..help yourself.

Comments are closed.