Freddie Mac arranged stealth campaign to kill legislation

Canuck Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:55 am

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_bi_ge/the_influence_game_housing

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.

Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.

floridafun Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:40 am

and also in the link...

McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign. He signed Hagel's letter and three weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.

By the time McCain did so, however, DCI's effort had gone on for nine months and was on its way toward killing the bill.

In recent days, McCain has said Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were "one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire" of the global credit crisis. McCain has accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of taking advice from former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and failing to see that the companies were heading for a meltdown.

moondrop Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:53 am

And Hussien is right there with McCain.

Guest Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:43 pm

lol. Big Banks and Republicans are basically responsible for things in the end. They're the ones against regulations. Oh noes, regulation means socialism!

floridafun Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:52 pm

social security and disability and child labor laws and epa are socialist..EEEEK!! socialism is such a bad word---i find it sooo telling that none of these has been eliminated by the anti-socialism party in all their years in control!!