Monday, April 20, 2009

The Top Three Democrat Myths of 2008

by Sanjay Bherwani

Liberal Democrats’ are notorious for accusing President Bush and the Republicans for the nation’s economic meltdown. In light of their attacks I have decided to provide some valuable facts regarding how and why we are in this crisis. I also challenge any Democrat to prove me wrong on either of the issues of which I will highlight. These issues will range from 9/11, to the Iraq war, and ,most importantly, to the economic meltdown.

Myth 1 : Bill Clinton vs Bush's Legacy

Despite the reciprocal courtesy from the Obama administration, George W. Bush "covered up" many of Bill Clinton's screw-ups; often times without a peek of a complaint. Bill Clinton's success with the economy was not his own doing. What many fail to note is that he greatly benefited from the rise of online entrepreneurs. This “DOT. COM” boom created millions of jobs over night. The tax revenues collected from these new ventures put large amounts of money into government coffers. In fact, the government's Treasury increased by 85%. Bill Clinton also had massive cuts in programs and in Defense Spending. His cuts in Defense Spending depleted our military and led to 9/11. In '96, the Government of Sudan gave to Bill Clinton Osama's exact location, and Clinton refused to use the information to capture or to kill Osama.The only thing Bush inherited from Clinton was a covered up mess.

Oh and BTW, Bush was not the second president to be IMPEACHED.... Clinton was. We will never, however, get to hear from the far left media, and until this day, never has any liberal media thanked our President Bush for keeping us safe in the last 7 years.

Myth 2 : 9/11 occurred under George Bush's watch, not Clinton.

While it is true that the actual attack occurred on 9/11, when Bush got into office, the actual plot took years to plan- not 8 months. Bill Clinton had almost a decade to capture or to kill Osama Bin Laden after his EXACT location was given to him. I find it ironic that the media keeps telling us not to blame Obama for what occurred at least a year ago. The media tells us he is not to be blamed for anything; "He needs to be given a chance to settle in", is what they say. When did they offer up such courtesy,however, to Bush. Why do we blame George Bush for an attack that occurred with in the first 8 months of his presidency? Bill Clinton left office with one of the lowest approval rating within the military. Bush left with one of the highest, and hence, we have been safe for the last 7 years. People forget that there were “eight terrorist attacks” during Clinton's watch. There was only “ONE” during President Bush’s.


The 9/11 commission reports note that the information that National Security Advisor Condi Rice received was to say, the least ,vague. One report said "attacks in the near future" but never said ...when, whom, how...... Clinton had the' when,whom and how' information from the Sudanese Government.

Upon that info...Bush:

Asked the FAA, INS, Customs, and Coast guard to increase security.
2. Issued at least five warnings to the US military.
3. Met regularly with the Counter Terrorism Security Group.
4. Issued many warnings to State Department, Federal, State, and Local authorities.
5. Ordered the FBI and CIA to increase Surveillance of known or suspected terrorists.


None of that would have been necessary, however, if Clinton had done his job.

Myth 3 : The Economic meltdown was caused by George Bush

I am sick and tried of hearing Barack Obama’s Administration say that they “inherited” this economic crisis because of eight years of Bush' polices. The accusation is dishonest and is a partisan political attack. Sadly, even some Republicans like to get on the bandwagon in attacking Bush for the crisis.

Obama and the Republicans who attack President Bush, nevertheless, are wrong. What caused the economic crisis was, primarily, the Nation's Housing Bubble that burst and which sparked the flames that caused our current economic situation. Some of the contributing factors to The Nation's Housing Crises were risky mortgages to low income Americans; and bad credit borrowers through the Community Reinvestment act (CRA) Which was intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate: including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Was this trend consistent with safe operations?

The question that arises in our minds is who passed the Community Reinvestment Act? The Community reinvestment act in 1977 compelled banks to make loans to low income earners and especially in "Communities of color" which might not ,otherwise,be made based on purely economic criteria.

Jimmy Carter and the Democrats passed CRA to give incentives to low income borrowers to get a home. Seemed to have work? Only a little until 1995 when the Clinton Administration implemented changes in CRA. Bill Clinton ordered new regulations for the CRA which would increase access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities.

The new rules went into effect on January 31, 1995 and featured: Strictly numerical assessments to get a satisfactory CRA rating; Using federal home-loan data broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race; Encouraging community groups to complain when banks were not loaning enough to specified neighborhood, income groups, and race; and allowing community groups that marketed loans to target groups to collect a fee from the banks (as of the year 2000, $9.5 billion had been paid to such nonprofit groups).

( From
wikipedia.com, Community Reinvestment Act, 1995 Clinton Administration Changes)

Due to these unnecessary changes made by Clinton in 1995, banks were forced to give over $1 trillion in new subprime loans to low income earners. If you want to blame someone, blame Clinton and your Democratic Congress in the late 1990's for forcing banks to give out risky loans to people who couldn't afford them because they believed everyone "had a right to own a house".

Bear Stearns was the first to make loans to low income earners when his offering was backed by affordable mortgages. Later Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac added fuel to the fire by purchasing over billions of dollars from "My Country Mortgage" loans, to accommodate low income earners (Who couldn't afford). This started our Subprime mortgages. Banks, consequently,had to issue these subprime loans or were forced to pay big penalties.

This pathetic blunder created the housing bubble, and economists on both sides agree that the loans given to people who couldn't afford them on sub prime mortgages is what made the banks go under, freeze credit, and created this chaos.

The policy encouraged by Democrats was simple: “No money? No problem!” If you want a house, we can offer you one with no money down. Got bad credit? No problem! We will approve you. Got a job? No problem! Income verification not needed. All you have to do is sign here, and you get a house.

These Banks and lenders guaranteed the most reckless of loans . Who,however, is responsible for such policies? Was it Bush? No! These laws were passed under President Clinton.

Unfortunately, the calamity of a previous administration, like 9/11, happened under George Bush's watch. Unlike Obama, Bush never accused the previous administration of any wrong doings. In 2003, George Bush tried to create a new agency within the Treasury Department for strict supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Democrats, nevertheless, stopped it stating, “Efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower income families."

Sanjay Bherwani - a NYC resident and contributor to HHR he is a new citizen born f India and raised in Dubai. He is a graduate of Queens College in Manhattan where he had double majored in economics and International business with a minor in Political Science..

You can email Sanjay at his email address slick_sanj@yahoo.com.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://studwithswag.com/

Regarding your thoughts on the current economic crising caused by the housing bubble.
"

Are you serious? The community reinvestment act was a useful and necessary tool. The economic crises was caused in part by little to NO regulation of the laws and protections in place to prevent fraud and abuse in financial corporations. What kind of bank refuses to loan someone 50,000 but will turn around and offer them a 100,000 loan instead? And people accepted these higher loans knowing they couldn't afford them. That makes more than one person at fault, in my opinion. That's fraud on both ends of the spectrum. I'm sure the bulk of these people (Democrats-Republicans) who accepted these loans didn't do so out of willful fradulence, but in the grand scheme of things that matters not. Wall Street's Elite become wealthy leading up to the windfall, but is't only the consumer or Democrats or Bill Clinton whose at fault? Credit Rating agencies also hold the bulk of the blame in my opinion, but they will get off with as little as a slap on the wrist while the "low income" people accepting these loans from the greedy, corrupt corporate loan sharks lose their homes and end up relying on the government in the end anyway because they can't make ends meet. You also assume that that only Democrats were affected. This kind of bias is nothing new, but it's a dangerous reinforcement of a much larger piece of the puzzle. I've watched specials showing entire neighborhoods in middle to upper middle class neighborhoods abandoned due to the mortage crisis and inability to pay for overinflated housing costs. It's not just low economic people, but also middle class families that were and are affected. Republicans and Democrats alike. Here's my "who to blame" list: Home Buyers, Banks, Mortgage Companies, Credit Rating Agencies, and Insurance Companies just to name a few. What about the chairman of the Federal Reserve? You see, playing the blame game is nice and being able to pinpoint exactly where the blame began is even nicer, but once you dig deeper, below the surface and look at the big picture the puzzle pieces began to spread out even more and take on a life of their own. This is what we saw happen with the housing bubble. Ultimately, the government as a whole shares the greatest blame. Greed is a powerful motivator that does not discriminate based on party affiliation.

Anonymous said...

I think the Sanj is on point and thanks for sharing!

As for the credit problems. The blame can be spread around but I do hold Clinton and his crooks with most of the blame. How do you force banks to loan to people who do not qualify? Remember they considered welfare payments as income!! My tax dollars to your non-working tail as income..now that's rich.

As for the credit reporting agencies. I believe FICO did not take over until the mid to late 90’s. As for being to blame, if you knew how credit scoring worked..it could have been your biggest ally!! This is what we did… We were approved for $600K, then offered more.. we live in MD. We found a house in a nice neighborhood that a was undervalued.. We did not go and buy the biggest and newest house in the hood. We brought a historic home in an older community.. Purchase price..$299,000…home worth at closing $309,000…walked away at closing $5K. Purchased home on a 5 year ARM… Now WE all know ARMs are BAD!!.. But we did not buy new cars. We obtain new credit in the first year of home ownership, so credit could age, purchase furniture for home with cash or credit but paid off quickly.. spent next 3 years raising FICO scores above 750.. Refinance home loans in the 4th year to 30 year fixed with interest rate below 6 percent..home value in THIS MARKET $350,000.

I say all of this as black female to make a point…because I see so many brothers and sisters being kicked out of their homes because they purchased more house than they could afford. I remember when we were looking for our house. We would pass by the homes worth $500K to 1 million and wondered how the hell so many folks could afford those homes…you KNEW they were over priced and STILL folks were buying them! I even told my husband we should wait and buy our home because one day those people would lose their homes..No way all of them can afford them.. I never thought I would be so right!

Just because someone gives you money, you don’t need to spend it. Folks should LIVE BENEATH THEIR MEANS! If you know how to handle a little bit then you will know how to handle a lot!!

R.C.

rmrd said...

I hope you didn't pay the full amount for your economics degree.

From Fox News.

Massive spending and big deficits could alienate conservative voters from Bush, said Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union. Bush is to blame at least in part for the increases because he has refused to give congressional spending the red light. Bush has not yet used his veto power. The last president to complete a full term without vetoing any legislation was John Quincy Adams in the 1820s.

"Conservatives are becoming very uncomfortable with the trend lines. We've been growing spending under the Republican hegemony much faster than under the Clinton years. If these trend lines continue and there's growing discontent, his political base could erode," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,108066,00.html

What exactly could Pelosi, Reid, or Frank block if the GOP had control over the Presidency, Senate, and the House?

You can have your own political opinions.You can't have your own facts.

Anonymous said...

Mr rmrd, how on earth did you get FOX NEWS under this scenario, I have a feeling that you have no clue about the community reinvestment act, it was started by your favorite President Clinton who made changes under his administration in 1995.
I know you idolize Reid, and Frank, but the housing bubble started when Fannie Mae ad Freddie Mac came in to power in 1999 who purchased over 2 billion dollars worth of mycommunity mortgage loans to accommodate low income earners. Bear Stearns was in this mix as well by offering price securities backed by affordable mortgages.
Bush.?? Bush Administration in september 11, 2003, proposed a new agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they were government owned, then why on earth did Barney Frank, & Democrat Melvin Watt try to stop it stating “Efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower income families."
Barney Frank Housing chairman further illustrated " The more pressure is on these companies, the less we will see interms of affordable housing and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing". Because the democrats felt everyone had the right to own a house. Shameless tool Frank, who till this day would not take the blame for this housing foreclosure mess.
Sec Chairman Cox admitted he screwed up, then why not Frank.
Next time, you want to debate, Crack a book, read the community reinvestment act changes implemented by Clinton in 1995, and if you have to state anything about Iraq war in the future, please read the Iraq Liberation act of 1998, before you come with your MSNBC facts, orchestrated by Keith Olberman, and Rachel Maddow.
Thanks for playing.

sbm said...

OMG half the story like always. The queen and two Jokers took over in 2006 when the Dems took over. and thats when all hell broke out, the massive spending was the prescription drug for seniors that passed around the same time. Let me explain to you how they screwed up. They wanted more low income housing so loan programs were created to allow folks with other types of income the ability to buy a home, well you can't discriminate....and next thing you know the butcher, the baker and the crack maker all own 5 houses each ...wow. Tell me what happened to The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and why didn't these fake companies report under this act? (most massive regulation to business passed since when ? ) BY whom?

Anonymous said...

SBM,queen and two jokers.?
Give me real news, mention names of these people, because at this moment ur sounding like an old man who canºt keep track of his own conversations.
Democrats were in charge of the senate, and ur Two idols Housing Chairman Christopher Dodd,Malvin Watt and Barney Frank were the main jokers of this economic meltdown.
If you have any other names out there, name me some, i will be happy to take your questions, and stop playing the cards game with the two jokers, because itºs confusing and makes me think you donºt have your story right.
Bring me names? I will give you answers.

sbm said...

I guess you are new to this site, first I have never been accused of being a Democrat. I love my president Obama but strongly disagree with many if not most of what he has done since taking power (not the same as taking office) over the last 5 months. The Queen is Pelosi and the two Jokers are Barney Frank and Reed. Please read my post again slowly.

Anonymous said...

Sbm, well i like Obama as well, but strongly disagree with his policies.
A brilliant speech teller does not indicate he's a good president.
Since he has taken office, he hasn't done much, but triple the Bush debt within the first 2 months of his term.
No other president in history has outspent the previous administration, like Obama's administration has.
Yeah you're rite, i didn't read your post carefully, and you rightfully pointed out the two jokers Reed and Frank, but beg to differ if i would name Pelosi as the queen.
I felt Obama will succeed when he took office, but feel now that he stands a very slight chance to run for his second term.
With the lightning rod that's going to strike him with likes of Michael Steele, Jindal, Romney, he stands no chance.
To name a few, Shaking hands with Hugo Chavez and accepting the book that's widely Anti-American, writing a letter to Former French Prime Minister Chirac stating i am looking forward to working with you in the next 4 years, massive government spending filled with earmarks, bigger government, higher taxes.
Hah, second term.?? Does not seem possible by a long shot.

rmrd said...

This is laughable. In 2003, Barney Frank was the ranking member, not the chairman. That's when the "these two entities are not in trouble" statement was made. If Frank was the RANKING member, who had control of the Senate (and House and Presidency) in 2003?

Wow. Frank is all powerful. Barney could just roll over all those Republicans with a statement.

Talk about cracking a book. Conservatives have abut 25-35% of the voting public. The GOP will be a Southern Party. Texas Gov Rick Perry talks about secession. Sarah Palin gave the welcoming address to a group that supports secession.
Seem like very "patriotic" people to me.

The GOP has no plan fr the economy or anything else. Right all the party is dong is yelling.

Anonymous said...

My comment somehow did not appear. I'll try again. Barney Frank was not the chairman in 2003 when the Freddie/Fannie comment was made. He was he ranking member of the committee.

Is a single Democratic Congressman powerful enough to cow the GOP controlled House, Senate and President?

sbm said...

rmrd...... yea yea yea the GOP is racist....there are no Democrat racist and Santa will bring you something nice for Christmas or is it the Holidays......No regulation? What happened to The Sarbanes-Oxley Act…. ohhh that wasn't regulation for public companies? The GOP IS responsible for not pushing harder, the my community lending program was neccesary and was limited by cost and income FHA lending limit and ~52K total houshold income. The problem started when FNMA started buying exotic loans like SISA NINA SIVA ect that was meant for lower income folks and self employeed individuals. ALL championed by Frank and CO

For 16 years reformers in Congress have tried to improve oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and prevent the government-chartered companies from putting the housing market and the whole economy at risk. All that time, Frank was involved in efforts to block those attempts, and in the last eight years he was a leader of those efforts.
In 2002, shortly before accounting irregularities were exposed at both companies, Frank said, “I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems,” The Wall Street Journal reported. After the Freddie Mac accounting scandal in 2003, Frank said, “I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis.”
But there was a crisis, thanks in large part to Frank, Sen. Charles Schumer and others on the leash of these companies. In Congress, they made sure there was no additional oversight, no additional limit on executive behavior and compensation, and no further restraint on the growth of the companies’ mortgage-backed-securities portfolios, among other changes.
(All of these needed reforms, by the way, have been championed for years by Sen. John Sununu.)
In fact, Frank & Co. made matters worse by pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take on greater risk. They wanted more loans to people who might not qualify for traditional bank financing. And, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, Frank “pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements — which now means taxpayers will have to make up that capital shortfall.”
Even now, after the government took the companies over (which Frank repeatedly said over the years was not a possibility), Frank opposes limits on the amount of money they can risk on mortgage backed securities — the one reform that might have done the most to prevent the current meltdown and probably would do the most to keep it from happening again.
Barney Frank is the very symbol of Washington’s deliberate refusal to prevent the collapse — the predicted collapse — of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And this is the guy the New Hampshire Democratic Party showcases at its most prestigious annual event. That ought to tell you a lot right there.

rmrd said...

sbm

Once again you've got the spectre of GOP racists on the mind. I did not consider race, my question was about GOP leaders bowing to secessionists. Gov Perry talked about Texas secession. Gov Palin gave the welcoming address to the Alaska Independence Party, which supports Alaskan secession. Those ties with secessionists (read traitors) need to be explained.

Regarding your obsession with race, Gov Palin was prayed over by an African pastor at her church in Alaska. If the GOP had any brains that prayer session could have been used to block any charge of racism directed her way. But the GOP is just inept and missed an opportunity.

You can go after any statement by Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, or Santa Claus. The GOP had the reigns over the Presidency, Senate and House. Why did the GOP fail to act on Freddie and Fannie?

sbm said...

Unlike the unbreakable, super majority, have no excuses, do whatever we want, it’s on me if it fails, MAJORITY the Democrats currently enjoy, That wasn't the case when the alarms where ringing.
STOP trying to mask your racist accusations of the GOP with sly "southern party" remarks. I am to intelligent to let it slide and your are too smart to deny it.
As for regulation or lack of, please enlighten me on your thoughts on a small piece of legislation called The Sarbanes-Oxley Act.