Barney Frank: GOP Housing Crisis Attacks Racially Motivated

Congressman Barney Frank says Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that is racially motivated.

Frank told a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston on Monday that Republicans are appealing to their base by blaming the economic crisis on efforts to expand affordable housing.

He said "the fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt" the GOP critics with their political base.

But the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee says the Community Reinvestment Act has helped expand affordable housing to low- and moderate-income buyers.

He says the larger subprime mortgage mess is instead responsible for the vast majority of foreclosures and the financial problems on Wall Street.

Comments

[boogiewoman]

Lehmans CEO made $350,000.000. Paulsen is worth $500,000,000! Lehmans handed out bonuses a few days before they fell. Wall Street has raped America and maybe be the world. Send them all to Jail.

[Bettysdad]

I see more Forclosure signs in great neighborhoods than in poor and ordinary ones.
People got way over their heads in McMansions.

[phoebie]

In relation to your entry, many river vacation homes were built the past six years where I live. For Sale signs started to appear on these second homes in the summer of 2007. This tells me many of those who thought they could swing a second mortgage because of loosened regulations and low initial payments are now having financial concerns.

[georgiaeliot]

It's a variation on the "welfare mothers created the Reagan deficits" theme.

[unite4change]

Yes welfare for Walls Street. Once and for all check this out and pass it on to you friend that think like you. Stop believing Fox talking points.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

[luckyinnc]

Barney Frank is a joke, he should be ashamed of how he has handled himself during this crisis. It's always someone elses fault, always the Republicans, never anything that the Dems had any impact on.

[sdskelton03]

All of the Democrats and Republicans are guilty in the this thing and I say we throw all the bums out..

The Democrats pressured Fannie and Freddie to underwrite riskier and riskier loans to advance minority homeownership.

The fat cats on Wall Street then had a giant orgy in all this worthless paper and neither party did anything to stop it.

[unite4change]

Once and for all check this out and pass it on to you friend that think like you. Stop believing Fox talking points.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

[djsue]

Wow,

Now, the minorities loaned themselves money?

All these brokers and investment banks were thinking about was huge profits for themselves, and their greed caught up with them. Fannie and Freddie were not the only companies that did this, and no one ever gives us the figures of how many white people got caught up in these scenarios, do they?

[navy62802]

Agreed, it's everyone's fault. It's not a Democrat or Republican problem...it's everyone's responsibility. However, I have to say I quite liked Barney Frank's conduct during this whole thing. Though he was perhaps more culpable than most for this crisis, he has been pretty hard-nosed about getting the new legislation through. He came across as a hard-nosed Representative.

[JCB360]

If you support Barack Obama and Joe Biden and are tired of all of the republican lies, smear campaigns and swift boat politics, please visit this website

www.republicansareliars.com

[satyriasis]

I'm glad Frank is calling out those racist pigs for what they are. GOPers will always shill for the top two percent of the country so long as their messiah Rush tells them to.

[ifonlyuknew]

I love barney, but dosen't he always sound like like he had one bite and drink to many and nedds a big belch.
Obama/Biden 08/12

[nellie]

The trollbrigade is trying its best to find a way to blame this on the Democrats.

What caused this mess? DEREGULATION. Legislation written by? PHIL GRAMM. Passed by? A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS.

Who asked for the bailout? GW BUSH.

Who destroyed our economy by sending all our money to Iraq? GW BUSH.

Who sent our jobs overseas? GW BUSH.

Whose mess is this? REPUBLICANS.

[luckyinnc]

What caused this mess? How about giving loans to people who would never be able to pay them off, how about the Democratic policies and positioning that allowed, in fact required this to occur. How about the Dems standing up and taking responsibility?

[unite4change]

That's a myth!

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/mainstreet/

[SueEll]

Greed is responsible for this mess. Let's not forget the unbelievably inflated price of homes over the last few years. No one was satisified with just a small profit on a home sale, it had to huge. Nothing was affordable.

[djsue]

How about giving loans to people who were desperate to have their own home, when you knew they would never be able to pay them off.

When some of these banks knew that people were in trouble, they could have re-negotiated the loans, but they did not. They figured that all the money, was better than no money. They were wrong. They foreclosed, and when they could not get the overinflated price they were looking for, some of these homes wound up sitting empty, or being sold for less than what was owed on them.

So, who was all this deregulation really for, us or them?

[nellie]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/mainstreet/

[JohnBryansFontaine]

For a prime example of these racially motivated attacks against minorities, read arch neo-con Stanley Kurtz's sreed and my response:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_dangerous_pals_131216.htm?page=0

[sdskelton03]

Standard liberal response when they know their argument holds no water.

Rather than being accountable for his part in this mess, he just calls the other side racists.

I see right through it Congressman.

[PimpOmega]

Hey, if the hood fits...

[unite4change]

Once and for all check this out and pass it on to you friend that think like you. Stop believing Fox talking points.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

[djsue]

Sdskelton03,

How can you see through anything when you are wearing blinders. Remove them and really read and listen to what is being bantered about right now. We know you see what these attacks really are. "He is not one of us". "He is dangerous". It is playing upon the fear that people of color with an African name might be one of those doggone terrorists.

You can not be that oblivious, or can you?

[PoliSci2008]

I called it the Greed of Greedy $$$-Grabbers..okay rich republican investors!

History Lesson:
In the late 80s and early 90s, lenders offered Ballon Payments. Remember these? They were interest only loans until for the first year or so, and the time was up, shell shock, here's your ridiculous mortgage payment, pri & int at the going rate. Foreclosures were massive.

Early 2000, the lenders re-introduced this scam calling it zero only loans for first 6 months or year and shell shock, well you know the rest of story.

Lenders preyed on everyone all in the effort to sell overpriced homes. It wasn't racially motivated IMO.

[ADonnybrook]

Yea, Barney, talk abt how everyone but you, Dodd and Schumer is responsible for this mess .

I 'm still seeing them play a tape of you in 2005 telling people they are over concerned abt Freddie and Fannie.

What a joke.

[Nikola Tesla]

Yes you are!

[unite4change]

Once and for all check this out and pass it on to you friend that think like you. Stop believing Fox talking points.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

[Oakland]

Tell Barney Frank where to put his indignation. If he had done his job in the first place, there would be no crisis to blame on anybody. Frank, Bush, Pelosi, Paulson, Obama, McCain, Dodd, and Bernacke sold us all out.

[Nikola Tesla]

yeratool.

[GrainOSand]

If that is true then Bush, Cheney, Nixon, Reagan, McCain, et al, were the owners of the store where the transaction to sell America out occurred. Bush was working the register and Cheney was bagging Americans, while McCain worked the service desk with Keating.

Paper or plastic?

[unite4change]

That's a myth!

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/mainstreet/

[schreff]

This guy, Barney Frank, has no brains and a heck of a lot of guts. Appearing at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston, he is idiotic enough to blame someone other than himself for this financial mess. Boston should have another tea party and invite Barney to serve the tea. Next, they should ask the US Senate to impeach him with disgrace. But to avoid this he should just plain resign for the good of our country.

[Nikola Tesla]

yeratool.