Thursday, September 18, 2008

McCain not only predicted, but tried to prevent the fallout from Freddie/Fanny

McCain Warned us about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005



Link directly to the bill

He stood up and spoke before Senate for a bill that might have gone a long way to helping with the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, of course that bill died. But he did take a stand. Of course it would be of interest to research the bill and find out just who killed it.



Right now there's a lot of speculation about the Democrats killing it though in my research I have not come across that. It appears that McCain co sponsored this bill at first then it went on and was rolled into S. 1100 Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2007, at which pint McCain is no longer in the picture on this bill.



The previous bill was:
S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005; link below:

Link 1

Link 2


Current status:

"This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate. The majority of bills never make it out of committee. Keep in mind that sometimes the text of one bill is incorporated into another bill, and in those cases the original bill, as it would appear here, would seem to be abandoned. [Last Updated: Aug 30, 2008]"




"Apr 12, 2007: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs."


So there you have it the full and complete history of What McCain was speaking about. I would imagine that the truth lies somewhere about where I guessed it above. More than likely the Bill's author Sen. Charles Hagel went to McCain and asked him to speak to the floor and co-sponsor this bill at which point it never went anywhere (no doubt due to changes that were needed in the bill) It was later changed and rolled into the later bill for congress S. 1100 this time without McCain on it but with the other co sponsors still on board.



I might add here that this was a Republican bill and that the Republican party at least saw there was a problem.




In related news- OpenSecrets.org has shed some light on who Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were contributing to (since 1989):



1. Dodd, Christopher J (D-CT) - $133,900
2. Kerry, John (D-MA) - $111,000
3. Obama, Barack (D-IL) - $105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) - $75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E (D-PA) - $65,500


It was later brought to my attention that Senator Obama actually has surpassed Senator Kerry and now holds the number 2 spot



Wait - he has only been in the senate for a few years now- yet he managed to get to the second highest donations? Something smells fishy here.



Also related: Senator Obama didn't even know the name of AIG, the company who is currently receiving $85 Billion from the government as of late. He was very quick to criticize the bill bailing them out, but didn't know their name.

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