Possibly as early as today, the Senate will vote on a housing bailout bill that has been debated for months. The vote comes on the heals of news from Wall Street that the shares of government-sponsored entities Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have plummeted as worries about the companies’ financial solvency grow. Both companies closed at their lowest levels in more than 15 years, and Fannie’s share price is down 76% from a year ago, while Freddie is down 83%. Congress created Freddie and Fannie to help increase home ownership …
Yesterday we noted how the housing bill’s creation of a National Housing Trust Fund that would funnel money to corrupt and partisan groups such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was reason enough to be skeptical of the bill. Today the New York Times reports that ACORN is one of two prominent national nonprofit groups that “are reeling from public disclosures that large sums of money were misappropriated in unrelated incidents by an employee and a former employee.” Sounds like business as usual at ACORN. But more …
There are so many terrible parts of the housing bill being debated again in the Senate this week, but we’ll follow the lead of the Wall Street Journal and focus on just one: “affordable housing allocations.” We’ve documented before how groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) have been trying to establish a fund like this for decades and the WSJ details how the current versions of both House and Senate bills would accomplish this: Mr. Dodd creates an annual tax of 4.2 basis points on the …
Our friends at FreedomWorks are keeping the pressure on Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) for his sweetheart deal with Countrywide Financial and the housing bailout he negotiated to benefit the company. During a recent trip to Capitol Hill, the FreedomWorks team brought its Pander-bear to Union Station to shine the spotlight on the cronyism. Check out AngryRenter.com for more information. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsoM1chZElk[/youtube]
Today the Senate is scheduled to vote on the housing bailout bill that has been circulating on Capitol Hill for so long its title today is simply “a bill to provide needed housing reform and for other purposes.” When a bill’s title includes the phrase “and for other purposes,” you know the American taxpayer is about to get a raw deal. This bill is such terrible public policy in so many different ways that it’s hard to pick which one is the worst. But we’ll try. Bails out the banks most …
The Washington Post may have shifted its coverage of the Wall Street bailout bill from the front page to the business section, but the newspapers in Connecticut, Sen. Chris Dodd’s home state, are rightly keeping up scrutiny of the relationship between the Democratic senator and the banks that would benefit directly from Dodd’s bill. The Hartford Courant editorializes: [T]he Dodds received a five-year adjustable-rate mortgage on their Washington townhouse of $506,000 at 4.25 percent and a $275,000, 10-year adjustable-rate loan on their East Haddam home at 4.5 percent. Such rates …
The Washington Examiner has obtained a “confidential and proprietary” document produced by Bank of America and titled “FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeownership Retention Act of 2008.” The “Discussion Document” dated March 11, 2008, closely resembles the housing bailout bill drafted by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) that the Senate is set to vote on within days. Senate staffers have told the Examiner‘s Tim Carney, “the bailout section is exactly what Bank of America and Countrywide wanted. Its obvious they got what they asked for.” Countrywide Financial is at the heart of …
As the sponsor of a $300 billion housing bailout, you’d think liberal Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) would disclose his ties to the mortgage industry. Guess again. As coverage of Dodd’s sweetheart deal has intensified, so too have the senator’s critics. In a new video outside Dodd’s Washington, D.C., townhouse, our friends at AngryRenter.com raise some serious questions about his panda-ring to Countrywide and other lenders who would benefit greatly from the bailout. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGzrr3HlnyQ[/youtube]
We have been calling Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) housing bailout bill “The Wall Street Bailout Enhancement Act” for over a month now. In particular, we have singled out Countrywide Financial as the bank with most to gain from the federal government’s generosity. Countrywide is the largest loan servicer in the nation. It has been accused by bankruptcy judges of using dubious tactics to issue mortgages to unqualified borrowers, and has been at the center of the nation’s still-unfolding mortgage crisis. In the last three quarters, Countrywide has lost $2.5 billion, …
Just like any organized crime group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has a long and established history of using fraud, deceit and intimidation to achieve its goals. ACORN uses intimidation to shake down corporations for operating funds, deceives its own employees into supporting causes they don’t believe in, and cheats the entire country by submitting fraudulent voter registrations. ACORN is also adept at co-opting government power to fund and legitimize a criminal enterprise. It has been winning federal money since the Carter administration and routinely receives …
