Barney Frank Retires

The Hill is reporting today that Barney Frank will not be running for reelection in 2012.

The article reports:

His legislative legacy is likely to be the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that passed in 2010 in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown that sent the economy into a tailspin in 2008. Hailed by the Obama administration, the law has drawn sharp criticism in the Republican presidential nomination fight, and one leading contender, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), even suggested that Frank be jailed, along with Dodd, for their support of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the lead up to the financial crisis.

I suspect that if the Republicans take two branches of government in the 2012 election, Dodd-Frank will be revised or repealed. It was a legislative solution that never addressed the actual cause of the problem. Representative Frank’s statements in the years before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s collapse declaring that the government would not be on the hook if the companies went bankrupt are a matter of record. His role in making home loans available to people not able to pay them back is also a matter of record.

With the recent redistricting in Massachusetts, I now live in Barney Frank’s district. It will be interesting to see exactly what happens next.

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