Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight Pt. 1

[Amsel]

"Well my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just the same as I did.'

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.

What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give at all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.'

"'Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have Thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.'

"The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from necessity of giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'

"'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'

Col.Davy Crockett


The money we are taxed has a purpose.The goverment should not be wealthy.It should take no more money from us then is needed.I highly doubt that most Americans think of such things,and at the same time are taxed for income,sales,property,schools,and countless other taxes.The problem is our money is being squandered.We should be building up our own nation not others.We should be protecting our own borders not some podunk muslim nations.We should be fighting poverty here not Africa.And our taxes should be improving our schools not dumbing them down.

NOT YOURS TO GIVE

[Amsel]

By: D. H. Williams @ 4:20 PM - EST

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) reports from the floor of the House that the Republicans have been cut out of the process and called unpatriotic for not blindly supporting the fraudulent bailout. He says the only debate has been about what talking points to use on the American people. The most ominous revelation is when he claims the Speaker has declared martial law.

“I have been thrown out of more meetings in this capital in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible, as a duly elected representative of 825,000 citizens of north Texas.” Said Congressman Burgess.

Burgess asks the Speaker of the House to post the bailout bill on the internet for at least 24 hours instead of passing the largest piece of legislation in US financial history in the “dark of night.”

The most frightening part of Rep. Burgess’ one-minute floor speech is when he says, “Mr. Speaker I understand we are under Martial Law as declared by the speaker last night.”

Rep. Michael Burgess - "we are under Martial Law" | Daily Newscaster

[javlin]

Great post[#31] there Amsel just goes to show how long Washington has been power hungry and greedy.Had to edit for more research for more info and maybe post update

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

Amen to that having just finished 7 years in financial purgatory

People keep wanting to bring this all back on Dubya... which is ridiculous.

He could not have stopped this. NOBODY could have stopped this except the people who started it... none of whom were named "George W. Bush."

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by Bluehawk

People keep wanting to bring this all back on Dubya... which is ridiculous.

He could not have stopped this. NOBODY could have stopped this except the people who started it... none of whom were named "George W. Bush."

believe it goes back to the 80's with Reagan with deregulation of banking from what I've gleaned (supported by Mccain) and expanded more under Clinton

[javlin]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

believe it goes back to the 80's with Reagan with deregulation of banking from what I've gleaned (supported by Mccain) and expanded more under Clinton

weres the facts??

needed]The CRA was passed by the 95th United States Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 as a result of national grassroots pressure for affordable housing, and despite considerable opposition from the mainstream banking community.[1] Only one banker, Ron Grzywinski from ShoreBank in Chicago, testified in favor of the act.[2] The CRA mandates that each banking institution be evaluated to determine if it has met the credit needs of its entire community. That record is taken into account when the federal government considers an institution's application for deposit facilities, including mergers and acquisitions after the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 repealed restrictions on interstate banking.[3] However, until 1995 the Act was laxly enforced and banks only were required to advertise in local minority newspapers or sit on the boards of local community groups.[4] The CRA is enforced by the financial regulators (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC"), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC"), Office of Thrift Supervision ("OTS"), and the Federal Reserve System).[citation

sounds like pressure by guberment and Federal Reserve
to me

In early 1993 President Bill Clinton ordered new regulations for the CRA which would increase access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities.[6] The new rules January 31, 1995 and featured: requiring strictly numerical assessments to get a satisfactory CRA rating; using federal home-loan data broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race; encouraging community groups to complain when banks were not loaning enough to specified neighborhood, income group, and race; allowing community groups that marketed loans to target to groups to collect a fee from the banks.[4]
Community Reinvestment Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
_____________________________________________

The Clinton White House threatened to veto the bill if CRA provisions were substantially weakened, in response to heavy pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose Operation PUSH has made extensive use of CRA in its campaigns to pressure corporations and banks for more opportunities for black businessmen. But eventually the White House caved in to Gramm, accepting his amendments so long as the program remained formally in place.

The sticking point was the effort by Gramm to gut the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 anti-redlining law which requires that banks make a certain proportion of their loans in minority and poor neighborhoods. Gramm blocked passage of a similar deregulation bill last year over demands to cripple the CRA, and bank lobbyists were in a panic, during the week before the deal was made, that the dispute would once again prevent any bill from being adopted.

The banks and other financial institutions did not themselves oppose continuation of the CRA, which they have treated as nothing more than a cost of doing a highly profitable business in minority areas. Loans tied to the CRA average a 20 percent rate of return


In 2002 there was an interagency review of the effectiveness of the 1995 regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and new proposals were considered.[7] In 2003, the Bush Administration recommended that a new Department of the Treasury agency should supervise the primary agents guaranteeing subprime loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congressional support was approximately split along Party lines and the proposal eventually failed.[11]
Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system

______________________________________________

Just to be Fair PB some of the Pubs hands in this but no were the amount you claim

The new CRA regulations proposed in early 2005 were put into effect in July and September of 2005. They included new definitions for "small" and "intermediate small" banks which were subject to less restrictions than formally.[3] The regulations were opposed by a contingent of Democrats

Community Reinvestment Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Amsel]

Ron Paul, “It means it is unmanageable and they are into it deep and there is no easy solution … they cannot pretend this can be patched together by just printing money and expanding credit. You cannot place value into assets that are worthless they are illiquid because they are worthless and they’re trying to pretend they are going to put value back in to it. They are doing what they shouldn’t be doing, their doing what created the problem.”

[Old Wizard]

And this from MSNBC:

[Bluehawk]

Fire at will!

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

believe it goes back to the 80's with Reagan with deregulation of banking from what I've gleaned (supported by Mccain) and expanded more under Clinton

I've always thought it went back to the Taft-Hartley Act which, basically, made labor organizing illegal.

[renrich]

This "crisis" is basically a result of the Federal Government trying to make owning a home more affordable for more people. It worked well except that lending standards were lowered so much that when housing values began to decline, many people with little or no equity because they had a very small(or no) initial down payment have abandoned their homes. The old conventional loan required a 20% down payment. There was a good reason for that. The record shows that many Republicans, including George W Bush and John McCain tried to warn of this impending problem but were ignored or blocked by dimocrats who wanted to pander to low income voters. Another example of the failure of the welfare state.

[Matt308]

Now that about sums it up nicely. Well said, renrich. Another gov't program to reward those who underachieve.

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by renrich

This "crisis" is basically a result of the Federal Government trying to make owning a home more affordable for more people. It worked well except that lending standards were lowered so much that when housing values began to decline, many people with little or no equity because they had a very small(or no) initial down payment have abandoned their homes. The old conventional loan required a 20% down payment. There was a good reason for that. The record shows that many Republicans, including George W Bush and John McCain tried to warn of this impending problem but were ignored or blocked by dimocrats who wanted to pander to low income voters. Another example of the failure of the welfare state.

And now the whiners one and all are conveniently forgetting that yesterday 95 democrats (vs 125 or so Republicans) voted AGAINST that idiotic legislation too!

Extravagant excessive credit is what got us into this insanity, but the ONLY thing government officials and talking heads can come up with is to scream about the fact that getting MORE fricking credit is going to be hard.

Where in the hell are those people living? In what universe? Credit abuses got us here, and they demand MORE!!!!????!!!!

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by renrich

This "crisis" is basically a result of the Federal Government trying to make owning a home more affordable for more people. It worked well except that lending standards were lowered so much that when housing values began to decline, many people with little or no equity because they had a very small(or no) initial down payment have abandoned their homes. The old conventional loan required a 20% down payment. There was a good reason for that. The record shows that many Republicans, including George W Bush and John McCain tried to warn of this impending problem but were ignored or blocked by dimocrats who wanted to pander to low income voters. Another example of the failure of the welfare state.

What ever happened to the Buck Stops Here , if Bush and Mccain were all seeing and all knowing why didn't they introduce legislation to rectify this when they had the balance of power .It happened on their watch
The banks and others got greedy and no one had the balls to stop them

[timshatz]

Banks were greedy, that is true. Gotta get that bonus. Govt also told them if they didn't produce a given number of subprime loans, they would face penalties by the Govt.

Ron Paul has it best. The Feds are trying to shove through a non-workable plan to fix something that they broke. This is total BULL$HIT!

Call your congressman and tell them you don't want the bailout.