Replay that 90's Tape

Replay that 90’s Tape

As the Obama team runs trial balloons on their presidential appointments, the first few don’t appear to be “Change We Can Believe In”, but rather “Replay That 90’s Tape”!     Rather than new faces and new ideas in Washington, President-Elect Obama is floating names and looking to appoint Washington and New York insiders to key positions in the new Obama administration.  In fact, it appears that former members of the Clinton years are reappearing with a regular frequency in an Obama administration.   Even the Obama supporting Washington Post (Pravda on the Potomac) is coming to the President Elect’s defense, “Some critics are unhappy about the number of Clinton administration veterans -- the derogatory word is retreads -- in the new administration. As we've said before, we have no sympathy for this complaint. The best thing the new administration has going for it in comparison to the last Democratic president is the amount of executive branch experience it has to call on. Mr. Obama's willingness to do that and to bring on board those who supported his chief rival -- indeed, to enlist his chief rival herself -- underscores his own confidence.”  Washington Post, 11.22.08, Page A14   www.washingtonpost.com 

         This is the typical liberal and progressive defense offered by the press advocates at the Post.   If your motives are pure and liberal, and we like your progressive policies, then the actual facts on the ground really don’t matter.  And further, the Washington Post editorial writers, use moral leverage, “we have no sympathy for this complaint” (of appointing Clinton retreads).   Rather, the progressive writers compare the replaying of the 90’s tape to the wonderful Obama willingness to appoint his chief rival, none other that Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton herself as the Secretary of State.

         This is part of the legacy media and Obama team storyline of the “Team of Rivals”, popular book by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005) about President Lincoln and his cabinet picks in the 1860’s.   This Lincoln-esque approach is being promoted as how the new Obama administration is being put together.    While this story line is classic and lends the Obama as the “next most famous president” imagery to his manufactured resume, even the liberal LA times www.latimes.com is having a hard time swallowing the “team of rivals” story line.

         From the editorial by Matthew Pinsker in the November 18, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times, “People love Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on the Lincoln presidency, "Team of Rivals." More important, for this moment in American history, Barack Obama loves it. The book is certainly fun to read, but its claim that Abraham Lincoln revealed his "political genius" through the management of his wartime Cabinet deserves a harder look, especially now that it seems to be offering a template for the new administration.

"Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet," is the way Obama has summarized Goodwin's thesis, adding, "Whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was how can we get this country through this time of crisis."

Matthew Pinsker, a civil war historian concludes the well written editorial, “Over the years, it has become easy to forget that hard edge and the once bad times that nearly destroyed a president. Lincoln's Cabinet was no team. His rivals proved to be uneven as subordinates. Some were capable despite their personal disloyalty, yet others were simply disastrous. Lincoln was a political genius, but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”  LA Times, 11.18.08

         So what will become of the newly minted Obama administration that has a large share of Clinton administration retreads?     How will the 1990’s tape of liberal ideas and policies replay in the context of more challenging 21^st Century problems facing the United States?     What most of our progressive friends and liberal politicos are silent on is the fact that from 1994 to the end of his term (during the impeachment debate), former President Clinton had a more conservative Republican Congress to balance his liberal agenda.   The negotiated policies (reform of welfare, more responsible fiscal policy, a Federal government surplus) of the 1990’s, which the Clintons claim full credit for, were in fact a negotiated bipartisan outcome between a Republican Congress and a Democrat Congress.

The President Elect, in his weekly radio address continues to push the idea of reform and change in Washington, “That is the chance our new beginning now offers us, and that is the challenge we must rise to in the days to come. It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will.”   Barack Obama, Saturday 11.22.08

         So in 2009 we are back to one party rule, Democrat style.  This is something the United States hasn’t seen since 1992, or during the “new society” Democratic Lyndon Johnson years.    It appears that we are gearing up to a replay of the early 1990’s.   And it is clear that our new President-Elect will act.   The question is how will a self proclaimed “change” president lead the US forward with a host of 1990’s retreads pulling in the opposite direction.  Or is “change we can believe in” really a move backward “to the 20^th Century past” with Clinton era cabinet appointees? 

© 2008, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media   www.jasperwelchorg      

Bailout Root Cause: Social Engineering 10.5.08

Now that the US Senate has loaded up the 2008 financial rescue package with additional tax ‘extenders’ and increased the size of the Bill to 441 pages at a price tag of One Trillion dollars, it was the Democrat Majority in the US House who passed the “bail out bill”.    Over the past two weeks the US markets have been volatile, the credit markets hobbled and various experts scrambling to figure out exactly how we got here.    But the historical record is clear, the US Congress, particularly the Democratic members, have had their fingerprints on legislation to advocate a greater government role in housing and related targeted loan guidelines.    In fact, in 1994 Barack Obama (note his long time affiliation with ACORN) sued Citibank under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to legally pressure a leading US Bank to make risky mortgage loans.  (More below)

            Back in 2003, when some Republican members of Congress (who were in the Majority at that time), expressed concern about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Democrats rose to defend the government role in risky loans.  In the words of the esteemed Member of Congress, and chairman of the US House Financial Services committee Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.):   I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities (Freddie & Fannie) that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios . . . .

            Oops!   It looks like Representative Frank was exactly wrong.  For more on what the members of Congress said 5 years ago  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290574391296381.html

Where did the Congressional fingerprints start?  In the beginning was the word, or in this case legislation passed by the US Congress.   

            During the administration of Jimmy Carter and a Democratically controlled Congress, the Community Reinvestment Act  (CRA) was signed into law in 1977.   This started the ball rolling whereby the government began to require banks to make loans for social engineering purposes.    For more info on the CRA legislation, impact on the housing and mortgage lending in the US, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

            So how did community organizers, like Barack Obama, use the CRA as a way to leverage their agenda?  Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk show host, put it this way in his early October 2008 show: "That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN ... to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in 'sub prime' loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.  Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with [these community redevelopment things] -- and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.  In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions."  Think of ACORN as a thousand Jesse Jacksons, in terms of shaking down companies and institutions.  

            In the mid 1990’s, Democratic President Bill Clinton weighed in by expanding the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE) roles in the housing marketing.  From the initial elimination red lining in targeted neighborhoods (a practice by banks that was less risky for underwriting but not socially acceptable in liberal circles) set forth in the CRA in 1970’s, the movement in Congress was to ramp up mortgage lending to targeted neighborhoods and populations (lower income, minorities and substandard housing). Social policies of home ownership were pushed onto the banking system using Freddie and Fannie (GSE’s), through lessening of credit standards and pressuring banks through community organizations like Accorn.

Ed Lasky, a blogger with American Thinker www.americanthinker.com  on October 4, 2008 noted:  Nine years ago (1999), Steven Holmes of the New York Times wrote admiringly of the way Bill Clinton and the Democrats could claim credit for "Eas[ing] Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending." It amounts to a map of how Bill Clinton and Democrats created this crisis.

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.  NYT, 1999.

            According to conservative research (see TownHall at www.townhall.com)

and Media Circus www.mediacircus.com) Barack Obama, as a left wing activist attorney sued Citibank under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1994.   This lawsuit, which was settled by Citibank, is part of the legal underpinning to force banks to make poor mortgage loans in order to meet CRA requirements   Here is the direct link on the details: www.MediaCircus.com/2008/10/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans    

            Social justice (ACORN) plus fiscal liberals in Congress equals risky mortgage polices resulting in a US government bailout.  Another experiment in government responsibility superceding personal responsibility, resulting in the Federal government stepping back in with taxpayer dollars (2008 Rescue package passed by Democrat majority House on October 3, 2008) to fix the mess.    And to realize that Barack Obama was one of those who pushed for this social engineering at the taxpayer expense.  No wonder he had a “hands off” approach during the crisis, and preferred to stay on the campaign trail as long as possible, while blaming Wall Street “fat cats” for the mortgage loan crisis.

 

© 2008, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org