The Much Anticipated Palin Gaffe
Terry Trippany on Sep 08 2008 at 5:53 pm | Filed under: Liberalism Watch, Media Watch
Nothing to see here, keep walking, nothing to see here….
Michelle Malkin notes that the bottom feeding mouth breathers over at the Huffington Post are ratcheting up the idiot machine in their latest lame attempt to associate Sarah Palin with an election damaging gaffe. As is typical of the left wing borg collective they turn back the pages of reality and suspend intelligence in their desperate attempts to find something to smear her up.
Fortunately for us stupid never looked so blatant:
Gov. Sarah Palin made her first potentially major gaffe during her time on the national scene while discussing the developments of the perilous housing market this past weekend.
Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” The companies, as McClatchy reported, “aren’t taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.”
Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.
“You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country’s mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn’t speak well for her, I’d say.”
I’m not even going to bother pointing out who doesn’t have a clue because it is painfully obvious. As of now the doomed experiment known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is shaping up to be one of the biggest government created debacles of modern time. This after the corruption scandal that resulted in Fannie Mae agreeing to a $400 million dollar settlement back in 2004. This was just the tip of the corruption that will eventually be absorbed by the American taxpayer all courtesy of Congress.
Investors Business Daily noted in July, Uncle Sam Can Bail Out Fannie, But Who’ll Bail Out Uncle Sam?
The taxpayers’ predicament when it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the precariously capitalized “government sponsored” mortgage investors and insurers that own or guarantee $5.4 trillion worth of mortgages, or half the nation’s total, is grave enough.
Graver still is that the rest of the world of supposedly high finance is becoming more like Fannie and Freddie, with potentially disastrous consequences for the American economy and taxpayer.
Everyone has long thought that Fannie and Freddie are too big to fail. The feds would never let them fall into bankruptcy because they’re crucial to the nation’s mortgage markets and broader financial markets. The two have used their government coddling to wrap themselves in a web of guarantees, insurance contracts and derivatives that makes Bear Stearns’ business look as straightforward as a lemonade stand.
The mortgage disaster such a bankruptcy would create would mean near-certain depression. The Bush administration’s move last week to ask Congress to let the federal government step in and buy shares of the two companies as well as lend up to $300 billion to them, along with the Fed’s decision to let them borrow directly from the central bank, bears out this stark reality.
Let’s look back at Sarah Palin’s “gaffe”:
Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.”
This is the the line that Huffpo’s and other Kosmonauts take exception with. Yet it is quite clear that Sarah Palin was exactly right on in her statement. $200 Billion dollars is the current estimate of the bailout for a pair of companies that are exempt from taxes, exempt from SEC registration and reporting requirements and exempt from bankruptcy laws thus making Congress and the American people the only party that could possibly rescue them from a claim situation. I think it’s safe to say that the American taxpayer was always on the hook for these two corrupt and special agencies. If anything “too big and expensive” is an understatement.
Proof positive that some people are obviously too stupid to be informing other people. Yet these people increasingly slink their way over to the The Blow Hardington Post to get a hardy pat on the back by other mind numb robots on the left.
All I’ve read and heard indicate that the government has no choice but to bail them out. That is probably true. But what is being done to prevent this sort of disaster from happening again? Should the Sarah Palin’s in the world not point out that they are too big of a burden on the American taxpayer? Should it be considered a gaffe to note that even though Democrats want to pretend that these are ordinary companies run amok they are anything but?
Hardly.
So as they say, if you are going to try and manufacture a gaffe you might want to avoid making manure yourself.
See Also: Wizbang
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Tags: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Huffington Post
Having just sat through real estate licensing, I can assure you, you are correct. Not only are all your statements here accurate, you left out the enormous chunks of FEDERAL (taxpayer)money infused into Fannie and Freddie specifically for “minority” loans. (i.e. loans to people who can’t pay them) This was done under the fraudulent auspices of The “Fair” Housing Act. Not only that, but the Realtor’s Association, of which I am a member, is heavily entrenched in the Washington machine. My exhorbitantly high dues go to pay for the constant lobbying that must be done to prevent over-regulating, etc. Trust me, people, when the government gets involved in anything they screw the pooch every single time.