The Wall Street Journal Understands Financial Things

Logo of the Federal Housing Administration.

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial updating what is happening with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It seems that we have not yet learned our lessons about these two organizations.

Florida Republican Bill Posey and New York Democrat Gary Ackerman are asking fellow members of the House of Representatives to sign a letter supporting an amendment to an appropriations bill recently passed in the Senate. The amendment will increase the mortgage limits that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration can insure from $625,500 to $729,750.

The article concludes:

There’s talk now that the House and Senate will convene a conference later this week to negotiate the final details on the appropriations bill that includes the loan-limit hike, without the accountability of so much as a floor debate or a hearing. That would confirm that, for all its reform talk, the current House majority is little better than the one that disgraced Republican principles in 2005-2006.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article yesterday reporting on Mayor Bloomberg’s addressing the Occupy Wall Street people and explaining how federal policies caused the housing bubble. Mr. Morrissey reports on Mayor Bloomberg’s statements:

By this time, everyone should be aware of the federal policies that precipitated the housing bubble and its collapse — the push by Congress and two administrations to push higher-risk lending in order to expand home ownership, as well as the effort by Congress to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to spread that risk through mortgage-backed securities.  While Wall Street made the situation worse by developing risky derivatives on those securities and failed to recognize the risk inherent in the securities themselves, the collapse wouldn’t have occurred at all had the federal government not intervened to distort lending for their own social-engineering goals.

It is becoming very obvious that establishment Republicans are not really very different from the Democrats that got us into this mess. There is only one solution–elect tea party candidates who will not be swayed by the Republican establishment. As long as the current Republican leadership is in control, there will be no change in Washington.

Enhanced by Zemanta