Barney Frank Comes Out of The Congress
By Krystle Weeks | Monday, November 28th, 2011 | PoliticsWell, this headline certainly wrote itself. CNN reports that Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank will not be seeking re-election to Congress in 2012.
During his time in Congress, Frank was most notorious for the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, which placed more financial regulations on Wall Street and not supported by any Republicans in the House of Representatives. The Dodd-Frank Act has created more headaches for banks. Under this act, banks were required to lend money to borrowers who could not afford to pay the money back, thus creating a scenario, where banks would have to resort to riskier investment to make up for losses. Additionally, if banks did not comply with lending to these borrowers, they could not acquire the best rates, which would not allow them to issue competitive rates.
It’s a good thing Frank is retiring.
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About the author
Growing up in Maryland typically does not yield a Republican. Fortunately, Krystle Weeks was one of the lucky few booted to the Commonwealth for her staunch conservative views. From an early age, she has been debating politics, and since 2006, she has been involved here in the Commonwealth helping Republican candidates to victory. Aside from politics, Krystle is a runner and a dynamite cook. You can email her here. Krystle also blogs at Crystal Clear Conservative and Charm Offensive Cooking.
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10 Responses to "Barney Frank Comes Out of The Congress"
A very good thing, indeed.
For a safe district in a Dem state, Barney Frank had a tough time winning in 2010. Redistricting is making his district LESS Democratic, and that’s why he’s quitting. We could pick up this open seat.
The Democrat next in line for his slot on the financial services committee is — Maxine Waters.
Barney Fwank is probably, along with Chris Dodd, the most culpable member of Congress for the housing bubble that set off the recession of 2008-09. What is really sad is that he should have been expelled from Congress in 1989 when his gay lover, convicted felon, and paid personal assistant, Stephen Gobie, was discovered to be running a gay prostitution ring out of Frank’s house. Frank later admitted to the Boston Globe that he knew about Gobie’s sex-for-hire activities.
Now then, if a straight 50-year old Congressman had a twenty-something woman living in his townhouse as his lover and paid assistant and she was running a call girl service from the house, what would the reaction of his constituents be? Such is the double-standard that we accept in this country.
Here is another interest link about the role of the House Banking Committee Democrats, including Comrade Maxine Waters, in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac collapse.
“banks were required to lend money to borrowers who could not afford to pay the money back”
This act was drafted in 2010, after the housing crisis, so even if this quote held water, the law would have been drafted years before Dodd/Frank.
Whether or not we’re glad to see Frank leave, at least get the timing correct for your rant.
Doug,
Forget Dodd/Frank and watch the clip I posted. It was made before the housing bubble burst when regulators were trying to rein in Fannie/Freddie’s reckless lending policies that were encouraging sub-prime mortgages and liar loans. Frank, Waters, and the other Democrats on the Banking Committee castigated the regulators and insisted that no further regulation was necessary or desirable. When the housing market crashed, they promptly blamed Bush and the Republicans and passed Dodd/Frank, effectively locking the barn door after the horse was gone. Dodd, meanwhile, was enjoying a “preferred customer” home mortgage rate from Countrywide, which went bankrupt due to bad mortgages based on inflated home appraisals.
I don’t understand your description of Dodd-Frank. It is a regulatory bill — I could not find where it requires banks “to lend money to borrowers who could not afford to pay the money back, thus creating a scenario, where banks would have to resort to riskier investment to make up for losses.” If anything, the act does exactly the opposite, making it more difficult for banks to lend money by upping capital requirements and requiring more documentation for residential mortgages, and by limiting and regulating the kind of trading in which financial institutions can engage.
But I’m no expert on this statute, and might simply be missing the fact that this is an implication of the statute that is not explicitly spelled out, so if anyone can correct me on this, please feel free.
Aznew, Dodd-Frank’s major problem is it exempts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from it’s regulations, but clobbers smaller banks with them. It prices mortgages out of the range of most banks today, with its encouragement of down payments as high as 20% and a requirement to keep credit risk with the originating bank. Of course, if you go through Fannie or Freddie, none of it applies. So, now you have a logjam of loans at those two government-protected shops and no competition for mortgages on the open market, because no bank can afford the regulatory requirements.
Welcome, socialism.
Thank you, Brian.
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