Oct 1, 2008 9:33 am US/Eastern
Frank Not Free From Blame In Mortgage Mess
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank talks with reporters Sept. 18 in Washington.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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Congressman
Barney Frank says it is nonsense, but he's taking heat from critics who say he fueled the credit-market crisis by brushing off concerns about government-backed mortgage lending.
But can Frank's denial stand up to the Spin-o-Meter?
There's a reason voters in the Fourth District have been returning Frank to Congress for nearly 20 years.
He's a smart, hard-working congressman who's been a longtime advocate for affordable housing.
But when he claims to share no blame for the ditch those government-subsidized lenders have driven us into, is that the truth, or just self-serving political spin?
"The conservative philosophy of deregulation that was dominant for far too long allowed private businesses to make terrible mistakes," Frank said earlier this week.
True enough.
But what does the record show about Barney Frank's philosophy when it came to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
We turned to the
New York Times, hardly a champion of the conservative philosophies Frank condemns.
Starting five years ago, when Frank rejected Bush administration efforts to clamp down on Fannie and Freddie, claiming they were - quote - "not facing a financial crisis," dismissing fears as exaggerations that would "pressure" the lenders to cut back on housing loans to those in need.
Barely 15 months later, with Fannie and Freddie engulfed in scandal over the same "terrible mistakes" Frank so abhors in the private sector, he was conceding they might need to be "better regulated," but "not at the expense of housing" loans.
Fast forward another year, and Frank was still fighting off efforts to curb Fannie and Freddie's borrowing, rejecting a regulator's bid for greater authority, and clearing the way for larger and more lucrative loans, all by way of resisting Republican "extremism," Frank said.
August of 2007, another push by regulators for more oversight is dismissed by Frank, now Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, as "inane."
So, is Barney Frank blameless for the Fannie-Freddie fiasco?
Sorry, congressman, the Spin-o-Meter knows a whopper when it tastes one.
If Frank seems cranky, it's because he is, and because he's spent most of his years in Congress fighting for what he thinks is right against harshly partisan conservatives.
But all that struggle has turned Frank into a hyper-partisan himself, one who, in this case, put politics ahead of sound public policy.
The saddest part of it all is, potentially, this whole mess puts at risk the very cause he purported to champion - affordable housing for the poor.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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