For the first 6 years of his administration, President Bush got to work with a Congress controlled by members of his own party. Why, then, were he and the Republicans unable to stop the financial hemorrhages from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac despite their repeated attempts?
A very good question! Here's a recently released video that goes far to answer it. In the video, you'll see excerpts from a 2004 hearing at which both the then-head of Fannie Mae, the infamous Franklin Raines, and the chief regulator who was trying to rein him in appeared before a House committee. You'll see the Republican members and the OFHEO regulator citing the evidence and predicting the future with uncanny accuracy, while Franklin Raines and all of his bought-and-paid-for Democrat Congressmen stubbornly argue, in contravention of a mountain of evidence, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing a fine job and should be left exactly as they were. The Republicans pressed the issue as hard as humanly possible, while the Democrats loudly and emotionally denied the obvious facts, while implicitly threatening to brand the Republicans as racists if they continued to press the issue.
Keep in mind that this video covers only one committee hearing in one house of Congress in one year. Actually, beginning in 2001, Pres. Bush and the Republican Senators and Representatives have been trying repeatedly to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including 18 times just this year, without success. Each time, they ran into the same Democrat buzzsaw.
Here – see for yourself.
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