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  ACORN ruled the day and ruined us all By: Carl Langley web posted October 7, 2008 GUEST COLUMN – If the situation was not so deplorable, the incompetents standing before the cameras looking like deer caught in the headlights would be laughable. But this was deadly serious business and our professional politicians were doing what they have always done best - blame everything on the opposition. Among those trying to shift blame for the nation’s economic mess were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rep. Barney Frank and others who were among the main architects of a fraud-riddled mortgage system that has nearly destroyed this nation. They had allies on the other side of the political fence. In this respect I refer to slick Wall Street investment bankers, insurance moguls, Republicans and assorted other speculators who pray daily at the temples of greed and avarice. There was, for sure, enough blame to go all around, even among those who stood silent and let this disaster overtake us. The fuse for this economic bomb can be traced back to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), created in 1938 by President Franklin Roosevelt, who, goaded on by his wife, Eleanor, wanted home ownership for every American, including those who didn’t have a dime in their pockets. The fuse was further refined in 1999 at the insistence of a Chicago street gang known as ACORN. ACORN is the acronym for Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now. ACORN, for those unfamiliar with history, can be compared to the communist gangs that overthrew the Russian government in 1917. With the complicity of Congress and the Clinton administration, CRA laws were amended to forbid lenders from merging or expanding their financial institutions unless first priority was given to extending mortgage credit to those unable to pay monthly home loans. So ACORN went to work in the financial market, doing what radicals always do best, becoming an outrage to proper behavior while rewriting the rules of economics. ACORN, whose most illustrious member is presidential candidate Barack Obama, has a sorry track record in obeying our laws. Some of its members have been convicted of vote fraud and sent to jail. Others have been caught slashing car tires of people who disagree with their methods. Others have broken into offices of bank officials reluctant to approve worthless loans and others have staged street protests in front of the homes of bankers skeptical about loan applications. ACORN’s people can never be confused with the memberships of Rotary clubs, the DAR, the Masonic Order or other organizations committed to community improvement. While the Democrats have been busy distancing themselves from our current economic crisis, their fingerprints in this sordid bit of business can be found in an article written by a man named Steven Holmes and which appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 30, 1999. It is there for all to see, blinking like the neon lights on a billboard that would cover half of this state. The lead sentence in Homes’ article was an historical footprint leading to the disaster that has befallen this once proud country. It read: “In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation (the government entity created 70 years ago to sell this snake oil to the taxpayers) is EASING THE CREDIT REQUIREMENTS on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.” In other words, the American taxpayer was committed then and forever more to take on the burden of defaults and foreclosures. This one simple act turned lending, borrowing and paying off debt into a socialist anchor drooped around the necks of those who work hard, pay their taxes and pay for their own homes. Fannie Mae is not a bank or savings and loan. Its sole purpose is to buy up shaky mortgages and encourage banks and savings and loans to be reckless. But government-backed programs attract crooks like a magnet does iron filings, so it was not unexpected fiscal parasites (those within Fannie Mae and its awful sibling Freddie Mac) and unscrupulous lenders would take advantage of this opportunity to become millionaires. Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, two Democratic operatives who have never been weaned from the public teat, are among those who have ravaged the taxpayers, reaping salaries and bonuses in the millions while jimmying the numbers to cover their tracks. They created the illusion that federal housing agency assets were in the billions, but it was all a lie and they never were brought to justice for cooking the books. While Holmes’ article about Fannie Mae was written nearly 10 years ago, the reporter did make an effort to provide balance to his story. He called on economist Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute for an appraisal of the change in lending policies. Wallison warned revising the requirements for CRA borrowing laid the groundwork for future disasters. He said forcing banks and other lending agencies into funding a population base that had little chance of repaying loans was an imprudent step. In short, too many potential borrowers were deadbeats and too many had little but the clothes on their backs, a time-proven recipe for failure.. Wallison then offered an ominous prophecy: “If they fail,” he said of the mortgage rules changes, “the government will have to step up and bail them (the lenders) out the way the government stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry (in the 1980s).” His words now resound throughout the nation, while people like Dodd and Frank, the main architects of the easy-come, easy-go approach to home mortgages, are running for cover and blaming Wall Street greed and Republicans for the mess. When you combine Wall Street greed with an entire class of people who have lived for generation after generation on the public dole and add to this mix the weeping, wailing and bizarre benevolence of liberal crazies this is what you get. And this is just the beginning. Wait until we get a national health care system and you really will see some stealing amid societal collapse. It’s easy to trace the sources of our current ills because houses in default are easy to spot and the paperwork trail can be easily followed, but bogus medical bills carry elusive fingerprints. A national health care system will see such an increase in patients that the mind cannot picture what will follow. Hospitals will be flooded with not only the usual Saturday night gunshot and knifing victims in the inner cities, but hundreds of thousands claiming headaches, sprained toes, insect bites, and so forth and so on. Primary care will be rationed and surgical procedures will be set back for months because of bureaucratic stumbling and fumbling. If a national healthcare system was so great, why are so many Canadians driving down to Detroit, Seattle, Cleveland, Rochester, Buffalo, Boston and New York to see a doctor or have an operation? Ask the average Canadian what he or she thinks of their system. They will be easy to find because many of them are in our hospitals. If you thought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would put everyone in this country in a home (note: some people could care less about owning a home due to the work necessary to keep it up), then you will love a government-run healthcare system, which will be the final nail in democracy’s coffin. Remember, you read about the coming healthcare calamity here first. ©
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