Immediately after the Wall Street Bailout bill passed the House and went to the Oval Office for Presidential signature, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that there would be hearings on the subject.
According to CNN:
| She said Congress will shine a new "light of scrutiny and accountability" on the nation's financial system to try to prevent a replay of the problems that plunged the nation into a financial crisis. Reps. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, and Henry Waxman, D-California, plan to hold hearings to increase scrutiny of the financial system, Pelosi added. "We want to take our country in a new direction for the middle class," Pelosi said. Frank told reporters Friday that starting in January, Congress will "have a major role." "We have to rewrite housing in America. ... It would be highly irresponsible if we were to stop here," he said. "Now we have to perform more serious reform." |
Yet, she mentions nothing about the accountability of people like Sen. Chris Dodd, or Franklin Raines or Jamie Gorelick, the latter two having made millions off of Fannie while the organization itself was sliding into government conservatorship.
And what about Barney Frank Co-Chairing these hearings? Will anyone get him to answer questions about the way he blocked reform of Freddie and Fannie over the past several years? Will Pelosi demand accountability and transparency from him? No. She is nothing more than a partisan hack who just managed to cram through the biggest socialist package in American history.
Something else that should be looked into: Barney Frank's relationship with a former Fannie executive named Herb Moses.
From Fox News:
| Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions. Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie. Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical. "It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane? "If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard." A top GOP House aide agreed. "C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws." Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. |
Of course they didn't immediately respond. They need time to think up a way of spinning out of it.
You can access these articles on-line here:
Pelosi: After Bill Passage, Hearings Set To Begin
CNN.com
October 3, 2008
Lawmaker Accused Of Fannie Mae Conflict Of Interest
Bill Sammon
Fox News
October 3, 2008
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