and yet the top tax rate of 39% kicks in at a couple hundred grand affecting folks that clearly are not the "very wealthy top 1%" that you speak of. They are significant consumers, that work very long, hard hours, and provide countless jobs to individuals across the country. They have given and continue to give great personal sacrifice in order to keep these businesses and jobs intact, and take an incredibly large hit in the form of tax to income ratio. These folks are not the inheritors of great wealth. These folks are hard working folks who have busted their butts to get what they have, and do a great service in providing jobs to their communities. Every time you talk about the "1%", these are the people that get kicked in the teeth again, not the the "very wealthy".
You can try to rewrite history but most of us know the truth. Frank was in the minority but the GOP tries to blame him. The real problem was Wall Street setting up a scheme to make money off the mortgages. Repackaging and repackaging made mortgage packets junk trading. Financial institutions made money selling junk packets, caused the financial collapse and let the taxpayers bail them out. Oh, and Bush admin looked the other way while Wall Street set up this house of cards.
OK refute it then. Try reading more slowly next time. Yes I have witnesses worse economic times. Late 70's early 80's.
The auto plants I sell to are all constantly hiring and starting at $21/hr and by 3 years up to $26/hr. They have a continual problem of people working a few months and then not showing up again as they go back to collecting government subsistence.
The Democrats including Obama, he was in Washington as a full voting member of a Democrat controlled Congress and his stimulus which he got passed immediately did not stim the tide as he claimed it would and in fact made matters worse. As a Democrat Senator he fully supported and voted for that budget AND AS PRESIDENT SIGNED IT INTO LAW. In fact the 2009 Omnibus Spending Bill was delayed preciesely because Bush was going out and Obama was coming in and he would sign the HUGE increase in spending. So on what grounds do you wipe his hands of it? It wasn't a reset, it was just a move from one end of Pennsylvania Ave to the other. Republicans did nothing of the sort. Well DUH he blew it, it was handed to him on a platter, all he had to do was negotiated the status of forces agreement and he and Hillary blew that and we now see the results. That the Bush tax rate cuts were responsible for the surplus disappearing and the Clinton was responsible for it in the first place. You said you do not subscribe to the "reset" theory so surely you know of what I speak. Clinton opposed the measures that brought about the surplus and vowed to repeal them if the Democrats regained control of the Congress. His tax rate hike slowed the growth of tax revenue, which was already on a strong upward curve before he was even elected, and every budget he submitted called for higher spending than even the Democrat congresses authorized.
It fell some, didn't plummet, during the 2000/2001 recession and recovery but began to go back up during the 2004-2007 recovery. The plummet began in 2008 and no sign of a turn around going on 6 years now. People who retire are no longer a factor in the number. The labor participation rate is ONLY people who want jobs, who are IN the labor pool. So the fact that many baby boomers are retiring and not even counted in the calculation make the number even worse.
The bottom goes down because they aren't working and aren't being successful, the top goes up because they are working and are being successful. BTW the groups are not stagnant, people move in and out of them constantly. Want to increase the incomes at the bottom, grow the economy and create jobs and open more avenues of opportunity to be successful.
Just because he was in the minority does not mean he did not weld power due to his seniority and political muscle. Yeah banks and investment houses never made money off mortgages before did they. Yep, they had to do something with all the junk mortgages the government was pressuring them to make didn't they. They were supposed to lose money doing what the government was pressuring them to do? And Bush's proposals were shot down.
Well, if you're going to make up stuff, you might as well go all the way...... How did a Republican President, a Republican Senate and a Republican House, get thwarted by a minority member of a committee.....
Dude, the wealthiest are already "earning" record profits; when are they going to start investing it?
I find that difficult to believe. It is almost like saying S&P CEOs would rather forgo their potential multimillion dollar bonuses just so they can be couch potatoes. How capitalist is that?
One of the most powerful members of congress, are you saying it is not possible? "In a nutshell, the much-maligned Bush Administration recognized the Fannie-Freddie problem early on. Slowly, relentlessly, from the 1980s on, mostly Democrat-controlled Congresses pushed both quasi-governmental entities to prod banks into ever more liberal loan policies that would allow less and less qualified loan applicants to obtain mortgages and—often for the first time—purchase housing, regardless of whether they were financially able to carry their mortgages. The problem became acute in the early 2000s as lower and lower down payments and “liar loans”—loans that required little if any substantiating documentation—became the norm. The Bush Administration—along with eventual GOP presidential candidate John McCain—tried to put an end to these practices, but to no avail. Frank, the Democrats, and a substantial number of incredibly stupid Republicans steadfastly opposed legislation geared toward heading off the already-gathering fiscal storm. This observation from The New Editor, noting NPR’s sycophantic “airbrushing” of Frank’s crude but successful effots to derail any restriction on Fannie’s or Freddie’s ability to use their collective leverage over the mortgage industry to degrade lending standards and provide more money to give away to the Democrats’ “charitable causes”: “From a September 2003 report by the New York Times’ Stephen Labaton, on a Bush Administration proposal for a new agency charged with the financial oversight of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: ”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”’ The mortgage implosion started playing out a scant four years after this cynical pronouncement. Borrowed money is not always as elastic as it sometimes seems. Clearly, something had to give and it did. Our financial system went kaput, beginning at the tail end of 2007 when highflying subprime lender New Century suddenly announced that it had no idea as to whether its already-reported financial figures were even close to reality. That was the tip of the iceberg. Most readers are well aware of what happened next. Where was Barney Frank throughout this developing storm? As Fox News reports: “In 2003, he called Fannie and Freddie ‘fundamentally sound financially’ and accused the Bush Administration of trying to “exaggerate a threat of safety… [to] conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. “A year later, he said talk of financial problems at Fannie and Freddie were ‘an artificial issue created by the administration…I don’t think we are in any remote danger here.’ “In 2007, as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and just as Fannie and Freddie – overleveraged and stuffed to the gills with risky mortgages they’d encouraged and facilitated – were about to go over the cliff, Mr. Frank attacked President George W. Bush’s call for reform as ‘inane.’” Yet when Fannie and Freddie went belly up in the fall of 2008, Mr. Frank voted for the same Bush Administration reforms that could have averted the bankruptcies of Fannie and Freddie. Truth is, for decades, both Fannie and Freddie were used at least in part as slush funds to help fund the political campaigns of Democrats, much in the way that mandatory public employee union dues are used to provide the same functionality. Employing loyal Democrats throughout their upper echelons, both Freddie and Fannie—as quasi-public corporations—“donated” hundreds of millions of dollars to mostly leftist Democrat advocacy groups of the ilk of ACORN to fund get-out-the-vote efforts (and heaven knows what else) often in major American cities. In other words, both organizations, supported in large part by the American taxpayer, were in many ways re-purposed to stir those taxpayer dollars to one political party only. And in large part, Barney Frank was, for years, the master of these fiscal revels. Small wonder he’s getting out of Congress now. The new voter excuse aside, perhaps Frank—one of the most obnoxious and abrasive politicians in recent memory—realizes that the enemies he’s made on the other side of the aisle will probably find it irresistible to go after his epic fiscal malfeasance in the next session of Congress. By bowing out now, perhaps Frank will avoid that fate as Christopher Dodd did by abandoning his senate seat in 2008 to head for a cushy Hollywood sinecure. In so doing, he seems to have neatly avoided more thorough Hill investigations of his sweetheart real estate deal from the ill-fated Countrywide mortgage juggernaut (now part of the unfortunate Bank of America.) Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes....-flees-scene-his-fiscal-crimes/#ixzz2oE02eJnq Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter Are you asserting Bush's proposals were passed?
Quoting lies doesn't make them true. Barney Frank was a member of a committee that had a Republican majority, and a Republican chairman, how did he "thwart" the majority? The housing crisis spiraled out of control before 2006, the collapse was already underway in 2006, that's why the GOP got voted out.
The market has been on Fed life support for half a decade, and this is all we have to show for it? When the Fed creates new money, inflation does not evenly spread throughout the economy, the destination of this new money determines where we see price increases. Constant QE has funneled into stocks and bonds and those are the prices that have been soaring higher for 5 years now. Now that the Fed is slightly slowing down their QEternity program, bond prices are freaking out. But go ahead and cheer on whatever politician you like, and pretend that they are responsible for the Bernanke "recovery". We have an increase of low paying jobs, a stock market bubble, a new housing bubble, a bond bubble, and a student loan bubble. Corporate profits are up from cost cutting, not from revenue growth. Does that sound sustainable?
There's nothing to refute. It's a bunch of nonsense. Clinton left a mess and Bush fixed it...ROFL. The only reason Bush's failed economy looked somewhat decent during the middle of the decade was due to the infamous housing bubble of 2004-2006. It was a complete mirage. Btw, Carter's presidency saw a +10 million in job creation vs +1 million under Bush. Even Obama, who saw the economy shed 5 million jobs his first year in office, is up to +3 million in job creation. You live in a fantasyland.
who are Americans going to believe, you or their wallet ? from that bastion of conservative politics the Wshington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-incomes-have-collapsed-during-the-recession/
Didn't think you could. Prove it then. The economy started slowing 3rd quarter of 2000 before Bush even won the nomination and was in recession within weeks of Bush taking office. Either admit it or prove me wrong. Wrong again it was across the board but glad you admit it was a great economy with it's 52 months of full employment and soaring tax revenues AFTER the tax rate cuts. You see the people like me DIDN'T buy houses while those at the bottom did so it just shifted the buyers to less qualified buyers. ROFL you don't need to create a lot of new jobs when everyone is working as was the case under Bush with 52 months of full employment. And during the Carter years high inflation was driving expansion. But the fact is 11 million during the entire 8 years of Bush. bls.gov Barely 1 million with horrible unemployment statistics.
So ridiculous. Still ignoring the truth. Obviously you can't handle the truth. Obviously missing the point. Why should they make money on a house of cards and then tell the taxpayers to save them? Please explain how Bush's proposals would eliminate the house of cards. Wall Street sold the house of cards to the rest of the world. That was why the financial collapse affected so many countries.
What are you talking about?! The economy created +two million jobs just this year. That's double what Bush managed in 8 miserable, failed years as president. I didn't agree with any of that partisan nonsense either. The tax cuts(plus the idiotic war in Iraq) helped drive up the debt--taxes as a percentage of GDP declined immediately after the cuts were enacted. The ONLY reason Bush's economy looked decent was because of the housing bubble. It was a total fraud. As for Bush being the lone voice of reason while the bubble grew, thats mostly BS. He touted his strong ownership record to anyone who would listen: http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/attempt-re-write-george-bushs-home-owne Barney Frank vs a Republican WH and Congress... and Frank got his way. You really expect us to believe this?
Lack of rebuttal noted. Why should they have had to make the loans the government was pressuring them to make and not make money on them, they are not charities. STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY (House) (Rep. Baker (R) Louisiana and 19 cosponsors) The Administration has long called for legislation to create a stronger, more effective regulatory regime to improve oversight of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks ("housing government-sponsored enterprises" or "housing GSEs") and appreciates the considerable efforts of Chairman Oxley and Chairman Baker in crafting H.R. 1461. However, H.R. 1461 fails to include key elements that are essential to protect the safety and soundness of the housing finance system and the broader financial system at large. As a result, the Administration opposes the bill. The regulatory regime envisioned by H.R. 1461 is considerably weaker than that which governs other large, complex financial institutions. This regime is of particular concern given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently hold only about half of the capital of comparable financial institutions. In order for a financial regulator to be respected and credible, it must have the authority and ability to adjust capital requirements of the institutions it oversees as circumstances dictate to ensure prudential operations. An effective oversight regime must also provide for clear review of business activities to ensure the integrity of the housing finance system and consistency with the GSEs' housing mission. The Administration does not believe that the housing GSEs should be exempt from these important standards of world-class regulation. The dramatic growth of the housing GSEs over the last decade, as well as recent accounting and operational problems, underscore the importance of protecting the broader financial markets from systemic risks caused by their actions. The housing GSEs' outstanding debt is approximately $2.5 trillion, and they provide credit guarantees on another $2.4 trillion of mortgages. By comparison, the privately held debt of the Federal government is $4.1 trillion. Housing GSE debt is issued largely to support sizable portfolio investments that are unnecessary to fulfill the GSEs' housing mission. Given the size and importance of the GSEs, Congress must ensure that their large mortgage portfolios do not place the U.S. financial system at risk. H.R. 1461 fails to provide critical policy guidance in this area. The Administration strongly believes that the housing GSEs should be focused on their core housing mission, particularly with respect to low-income Americans and first-time homebuyers. Instead, provisions of H.R. 1461 that expand mortgage purchasing authority would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers. Likewise, provisions that divert profits will lead to increased risk-taking and decreased market discipline, while exacerbating systemic risk. The Administration remains committed to bringing real reform to the housing GSEs and looks forward to continuing to work with Congress to ensure that the needed reforms are part of any final legislation. Budget Estimates and Enforcement This bill would affect direct spending and receipts. To sustain the economy's expansion, it is critical to exercise responsible restraint over Federal spending. The Budget Enforcement Act's pay-as-you-go requirements and discretionary-spending caps expired on September 30, 2002. The President's FY 2006 Budget includes a proposal to extend the discretionary caps through 2010; a pay-as-you-go requirement for direct spending; and a new mechanism to control the expansion of long-term unfunded obligations. OMB's cost estimate of this bill is currently under development. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851
The "liar loans" were the biggest problem. The private sector were making those loans. Please specific what proposal Bush had to stop the private sector "liar loans"? Fannie and Freddie screwed up by buying the "liar loans" to increase their share of the market. That was a terrible decision by one administrator. More of the fannie and freddie loans went under water because of the financial collapse caused by Wall Street. Again, when did the Bush admin propose a fix for the illegal practices by the private sector. Can Ponick write a more biased article? How much did the GOP pay him or did they give him the article to print?
