Why are conservatives always on the wrong side of history?

[Dad2three]

10 things conservative Christians got horribly wrong

Evangelicals and their ilk have used God to justify everything from Prohibition and segregation to slavery

1) Slavery. Both sides of the American slavery debate claimed to be speaking from profound Christian conviction. The Bible clearly has a positive view of slavery, something pro-slavery Christians routinely pointed out. Abolitionists took a broader, less literal view of the Bible. Unsurprising that this divide led to the South being, to this day, home of the most people who take a literalist, fundamentalist view of Christianity.

2) Women’s suffrage. Unsurprisingly, conservative Christianity was hostile to women’s suffrage, just as it’s been hostile to women’s progress every step of the way. Women’s “God-given” roles were routinely referenced in arguments against giving women the right to vote

3) Evolution.

4) Pain relief for childbirth

5) Catholics. Modern American conservative Protestants embrace Catholics and have even started to borrow some Catholic arguments against things like abortion and contraception. But in the early 19th and 20th centuries, there was widespread anti-Catholic sentiment, much of it tied up in hostility to Catholic immigrants. There was even an anti-Catholic political party in the early 19th century.

6) Prohibition. Hostility to Catholic immigrants was a large part of the reason temperance mania took over many Protestant communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite the fact that Jesus was a wine drinker, abstinence from alcohol—and forcing abstinence on others by force of law—became a major Christian cause during this period, leading up to Prohibition. This was true, even though many in the temperance movement were also aligned with the suffragist cause, making Prohibition one of the few Christian follies that weighs as heavily on the progressive Christian tradition as it does the conservative one. Luckily, it took little more than a decade for the bigtime error that was banning alcohol to be fixed.


7) Segregation. Religious leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. led the desegregation movement, but it’s also important to note that the pro-segregation movement was also conceived as a Christian one. Arguments against “race mixing” were largely framed in religious terms....Christian right leader Jerry Falwell got his start fighting to uphold segregation, giving sermons about how integration was offensive to God


8) Contraception. From the beginning of the “birth control movement,” Christian conservatives fought to keep women from being able to have sex without getting pregnant.

9) School prayer. Along with supporting segregation and opposing feminism, the third issue that created the modern religious right is the issue of prayer in public schools. In 1961, the Supreme Court ruled against school-led prayers, even if they were supposedly voluntary. Instead of giving up a chance to use schools as a way to foist their beliefs on the unwilling, the religious right spent and continues to spend the next 50-plus years trying to find some way to sneak religious indoctrination/bullying of non-believers into public schools.


10) Marriage equality. The religious right is still fighting like it’s not obvious that they’re wrong on this one. The tide is shifting so fast it’s quickly becoming apparent that this issue, like segregation, is going to be one where they’ll be pretending they didn’t fight so hard for the side of wrong in a few decades.

10 things conservative Christians got horribly wrong - Salon.com

 

[Dad2three]

Conservatives on the Wrong Side of History on Mandela, Most Other Things


When has the American right ever—ever—been on the right side of history?

The answer is almost never.


...Do you support the American Revolution? I should hope so. You would not have, however, had you been a conservative in 1785. American Loyalists, perhaps 20 percent of the white population of the day, were devoted to king and crown for mostly the usual reasons: They were older, better established, had more money, were scared of change.


How about the abolition of slavery? I reckon you’re on board with that. Well, Lord knows you wouldn’t have been if you’d been among the 1860 conservatives who started a war over it (and whose apologists today insist the Civil War was not about slavery).

In terms of domestic politics, few polemical tasks are easier than demonstrating how wrong conservatism has been about pretty much everything in all of American history. Eradication of child labor? Why, an imposition on business owners to run their factories as they saw fit, you socialist! Giving women the right to vote? Women?! They simply don’t possess the logical faculties to be entrusted with such a responsibility, and anyway where will it end—I suppose you’ll be suggesting that black people get the franchise next? Segregation. Miscegenation laws. Immigration. Civil rights. The environmental movement. Conservatism’s record: wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Conservatives on the Wrong Side of History on Mandela Most Other Things - The Daily Beast

 

[Dad2three]

Abraham Lincoln Might Have Been a Republican, But He Damn Sure Wasn’t a Conservative

Lincoln also instituted the first “income tax,” and told the Southern states claiming “states’ rights” when it came to slavery that they were completely full of crap.

Could you imagine a Republican today creating a tax and telling states that their claim of “states’ rights” on an issue was absurd?

Abraham Lincoln might have been a Republican, but that was before Republicans became “conservatives.” See, there’s a difference between what Republicans were and what conservatives are. Conservatives have always been conservatives. Decades ago, racist conservatives aligned with the Democratic party. Today these same conservatives call themselves Republicans.


Anyone who knows anything about history knows that long ago Democrats were the party of racists. But those who are honest about history also know that over time, the political ideology of both parties switched.

This isn’t hard to prove – just look at reality. What groups align with the fringe of the Republican party? The KKK, neo-Nazis and people who seek to glorify the confederacy. In other words, racists. You don’t see members of the KKK, Nazi groups or confederate sympathizers siding with modern day Democrats. Oh, no – they vote Republican.


...
Nothing about Lincoln made him a conservative. He fought against “states’ rights,” he created a tax, he bucked tradition, he embraced change and he did all of this by using the power of big government.

Abraham Lincoln Might Have Been a Republican But He Damn Sure Wasn t a Conservative

 

[Dad2three]

A Conservative History of the United States


1500s: The American Revolutionary War begins: “The reason we fought the revolution in the sixteenth century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown.”—Rick Perry


1607: First welfare state collapses: “Jamestown colony, when it was first founded as a socialist venture, dang near failed with everybody dead and dying in the snow.”—Dick Armey

1619-1808: Africans set sail for America in search of freedom: “Other than Native Americans, who were here, all of us have the same story.”—Michele Bachmann


1775: New Hampshire starts the American Revolution: “What I love about New Hampshire… You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world.”—Michele Bachmann

1776: The Founding Synod signs the Declaration of Independence: “…those fifty-six brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen.”—Mike Huckabee

1787: Slavery is banned in the Constitution: “We also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.”—Michele Bachmann

1801: “Thomas Jefferson creates the Marines for the Islamic pirates that were happening.”—Glenn Beck

1812: The American War for Independence ends: “ ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’…that song—written during the battle in the War of 1812—commemorates the sacrifice that won our liberty.”—Mitt Romney

1861: Civil War breaks out over pitting “individual rights as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence against collective rights.”—The Weekly Standard

1862: African-Americans join the Confederate Army to defend slavery: “You’ll find blacks in almost every regiment throughout the South, who fought right alongside white Southerners… And in almost every case, it was a voluntary decision that the freed blacks made.”—Ray McBerry

1908: The real Pledge of Allegiance is written: “I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.”—Dan Quayle

1916: Planned Parenthood opens genocide clinics: “When Margaret Sanger—check my history—started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”—Herman Cain

1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy saves America from Communism: “Joe McCarthy was a great American hero.”—Representative Steve King

1961: Barack Obama is born, in Africa: “And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya.”—Mike Huckabee

1961: The Soviet Union brainwashes its first Marxist terrorist spybot: “Soviet Russian Communists knew of Barack from a very early date… he was raised and groomed Communist to pave the way for their future.”—Janet Porter

1963: G.O.P. clergyman delivers his famous “I have a dream” speech: “It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Republican.”—Human Events blog

1964: Republicans fight for the Civil Rights Act: “We were the people who passed the civil-rights bills back in the sixties without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle.”—Representative Virginia Foxx

1967: Indonesia brainwashes its first Islamic terrorist spybot: “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised—spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father—as a Muslim and was educated in a Madrassa?”—Steve Doocy

1967: Max Cleland blows himself up with a grenade trying to drink beer: “Cleland lost three limbs in an accident during a routine noncombat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends.”—Ann Coulter

1967: John Kerry likely shoots himself in the leg in order to score a Purple Heart medal: “There are legitimate questions about whether or not… it was a self-inflicted wound.”—Michelle Malkin

1968: George W. Bush bravely joins the National Guard: “This was not an endeavor without risk.”—Bob Harmon

July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong makes a historic utterance: “The first word spoken from the moon was ‘Houston.’ ”—Rick Perry

1977: America’s capital is briefly moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.—Dan Quayle

1993: Barack Obama appears in the hip-hop video “Whoomp! There It Is!”: “Pay close attention to his ears poking out, the shape of his nose, and skin color.”—Tennessee Sons of Liberty

1993: Hillary Clinton claims her first kill, Vincent Foster—Jerry Falwell video

1994: Bill Clinton tops Hillary with twenty-four murders: these people died “under other than natural circumstances.”— Representative William Dannemeyer.

1998: Actually, the Clinton murders number forty people: “There was talk that this would be another body to add to the list of forty bodies or something that were associated with the Clinton Administration.”—Linda Tripp.

1998: Update: Clinton murders eighty people: “In recent months, a list of more than 80 deaths associated directly or indirectly with Clinton has been the buzz of the new media.”—Joseph Farah

1999: Global cooling begins: “For the last decade the climate has been cooling.”—Mary Matalin

September 11, 2001: Nothing happened: “We had no domestic attacks under Bush.”—Rudy Giuliani

May 1, 2003: The war in Iraq is won: “Mission Accomplished”—White House banner

May, 2004: Abu Ghraib pranksters pull some funny ones: “This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation … I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release?”—Rush Limbaugh

2006: The Rapture of Jesus Christ débuts: “We are in the last days.”—Michele Bachmann

2006: W.M.D. discovered: “We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”—Rick Santorum

2009: The Department of Veteran Affairs institutes new cost-cutting policy: they have “a manual out there telling our veterans… to commit suicide.”—Michael Steele

2009: The $3,128 light switch tax begins: “…a series of new taxes, including a light switch tax that would cost every American household $3,128 a year.”—House Republican Conference

2009: Obama strikes traditional motto from America’s coins: “ ‘In God We Trust’ is Gone!”—Patriot Action Network

2009: Michigan diversifies its legal system: “The judges in Dearborn are using, and allowing to be used, Shariah law.”—Representative Leo Berman

2009: Democrats give preferential treatment to their base: The federal Hate Crime law would create “special protection for pedophiles.”—Representative Steve King

2010: Flying Jihad Terror Babies invade America: “It appeared they would have young women who became pregnant. They would get them into the United States to have a baby, they wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby, and then they would return back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists.”—Representative Louie Gohmert

2010: Drug dealers invade America: “Mexican drug cartels have seized control of at least two American ranches inside the U.S. territory near Laredo, Texas.”—Kimberly Dvorak

2010: And form a beachhead in Arizona: “Our law-enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded.”—Governor Jan Brewer

2011: Radiation cures cancer: “There is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says are the minimum amounts you should be exposed to are actually good for you and reduce cases of cancer.”—Ann Coulter

2011: Arabic is declared America’s second language: “Some of our state’s educational administrators joined the feds in seeking to mandate Arabic classes for Texas children.”—Chuck Norris

2011: Obama outlaws fishing: people “can’t go fishing anymore because of Obama.”—Rush Limbaugh

2011: Obama provides health insurance for dogs: “In the health care bill, we’re now offering insurance for dogs.”—Glenn Beck

2011: President George W. Bush kills Osama bin Laden: “Thanks to George Bush…. Because if Obama had his way we wouldn’t have gotten bin Laden, you know that.”—Sean Hannity

A Conservative History of the United States - The New Yorker

 

[PaintMyHouse]

When you live in the past, the future leaves you behind, as it should.

 

[Dad2three]

Flashback: Republicans Opposed Medicare In 1960s By Warning Of Rationing, ‘Socialized Medicine’


Ronald Reagan: “f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]

George H.W. Bush: Described Medicare in 1964 as “socialized medicine.” [1964]

Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” [1964]

Bob Dole: In 1996, while running for the Presidency, Dole openly bragged that he was one of 12 House members who voted against creating Medicare in 1965. “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare . . . because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1965]

 

[Dad2three]

REPORT: Five Things Unions Have Done For All Americans


1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend: Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that the relatively labor-free 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now. Yet in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes in order to demand shorter workweeks so that Americans could be home with their loved ones instead of constantly toiling for their employers with no leisure time. By 1937, these labor actions created enough political momentum to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped create a federal framework for a shorter workweek that included room for leisure time.

2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality: As ThinkProgress reported earlier in the week, the relative decline of unions over the past 35 years has mirrored a decline in the middle class’s share of national income. It is also true that at the time when most Americans belonged to a union — a period of time between the 1940’s and 1950’s — income inequality in the U.S. was at its lowest point in the history of the country.

3. Unions Helped End Child Labor: “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined” in U.S. history, with organization’s like the “National Consumers’ League” and the National Child Labor Committee” working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor. The very first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment” in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.

4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: “The rise of unions in the 1930’s and 1940’s led to the first great expansion of health care” for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers. In 1942, “the US set up a National War Labor Board. It had the power to set a cap on all wage increases. But it let employers circumvent the cap by offering “fringe benefits” – notably, health insurance.” By 1950, “half of all companies with fewer than 250 workers and two-thirds of all companies with more than 250 workers offered health insurance of one kind or another.”

5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act: Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”

 

[Dad2three]

FLASHBACK: In 1993, GOP Warned That Clinton’s Tax Plan Would ‘Kill Jobs,’ ‘Kill The Current Recovery’

Here is just some of the rhetoric employed by Republicans in 1993 to fearmonger about Clinton’s tax increases (there’s more below the fold):

Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), February 2, 1993: We have all too many people in the Democratic administration who are talking about bigger Government, bigger bureaucracy, more programs, and higher taxes. I believe that that will in fact kill the current recovery and put us back in a recession. It might take 1 1/2 or 2 years, but it will happen. (Congressional Record, 1993, Thomas)

Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX), May 24, 1993: I would much rather be here today supporting the President and I would do so if his proposals could expect to increase jobs and the standard of living for Americans, but I believe his massive tax increases will do just the opposite. (Congressional Record, 1993, Thomas)

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-GA), July 13, 1993: Small businesses generate the bulk of this Nation’s new jobs. And they will be the hardest hit by the Clinton tax-and-spend budget. Because, when you raise taxes, you kill jobs. (Congressional Record, 1993, Thomas)

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), May, 27, 1993: This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy. It will kill jobs, kill businesses, and yes, kill even the higher tax revenues that these suicidal tax increasers hope to gain. (Congressional Record, 1993, Page: H2949)

Of course, far from bringing the Doomsday of which Republicans were warning, Clinton’s policies ushered in the longest sustained period of economic growth in the nation’s history, with 23 million jobs created. Compared to the administration of George W. Bush, the Clinton-era saw more job growth, more GDP growth, more wage growth, and more business investment. Incomes grew under Clinton but fell under Bush, while poverty did the opposite, falling under Clinton but increasing under Bush.

Oh, and Clinton balanced the budget for the first time since 1969. On May 27, 1993, Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL) said “[Americans] will remember who set loose this dreadful virus into the economic bloodstream of our nation.” If only we could have a “dreadful virus” of that sort today. More quotes below the jump.:

 

[ScienceRocks]

When you live in the past, the future leaves you behind, as it should.

I certainly hope men wearing dresses isn't the future! I'd hope it would be space travel and advancement in science!

Two very different futures.

 

[Dad2three]

Conservatives Can't Escape Blame for the Financial Crisis


The onset of the recent financial crisis in late 2007 created an intellectual crisis for conservatives, who had been touting for decades the benefits of a hands-off approach to financial market regulation. As the crisis quickly spiraled out of control, it quickly became apparent that the massive credit bubble of the mid-2000s, followed by the inevitable bust that culminated with the financial markets freeze in the fall of 2008, occurred predominantly among those parts of the financial system that were least regulated, or where regulations existed but were largely unenforced.

Predictably, many conservatives sought to blame the bogeymen they always blamed



In March of 2008, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) blamed loans “to the minorities, to the poor, to the young” as causing foreclosures. Not long after, conservative commentator Michele Malkin went so far as to claim that illegal immigration caused the crisis.

This tendency to shift blame to minorities and poor people for the financial crisis soon developed into a well-honed narrative on the right. Swiftly and repeatedly many conservatives blamed affordable housing policies—particularly the affordable housing goals in place for the two government sponsored mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act that applies to regulated lenders such as banks and thrifts—for the massive financial crisis that occurred. This despite the fact that as recently as 2006 prominent conservatives, including FCIC Republican member and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Peter Wallison, were arguing that Fannie and Freddie needed to do more lending to low-income communities and minorities.


Last week, the Republican minority on the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission continued this tradition of willful blindness, issuing their own self-described nine-page "primer" on the financial crisis—one that attempts to lay the blame once again on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The picture they paint is reflective of a mindset they displayed last week when all four Republican members tried to ban the phrases "Wall Street," "shadow banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from the final report.

These terms are important to understanding what happened in the 2000s. But equally damning is this—the minority members of the FCIC got their facts wrong, their time frames jumbled, and their selection of relevant facts skewed to reflect their libertarian biases.


Politics Most Blatant Center for American Progress

 

[Dad2three]

Conservatives Can't Escape Blame for the Financial Crisis


The onset of the recent financial crisis in late 2007 created an intellectual crisis for conservatives, who had been touting for decades the benefits of a hands-off approach to financial market regulation. As the crisis quickly spiraled out of control, it quickly became apparent that the massive credit bubble of the mid-2000s, followed by the inevitable bust that culminated with the financial markets freeze in the fall of 2008, occurred predominantly among those parts of the financial system that were least regulated, or where regulations existed but were largely unenforced.

Predictably, many conservatives sought to blame the bogeymen they always blamed



In March of 2008, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) blamed loans “to the minorities, to the poor, to the young” as causing foreclosures. Not long after, conservative commentator Michele Malkin went so far as to claim that illegal immigration caused the crisis.

This tendency to shift blame to minorities and poor people for the financial crisis soon developed into a well-honed narrative on the right. Swiftly and repeatedly many conservatives blamed affordable housing policies—particularly the affordable housing goals in place for the two government sponsored mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act that applies to regulated lenders such as banks and thrifts—for the massive financial crisis that occurred. This despite the fact that as recently as 2006 prominent conservatives, including FCIC Republican member and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Peter Wallison, were arguing that Fannie and Freddie needed to do more lending to low-income communities and minorities.


Last week, the Republican minority on the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission continued this tradition of willful blindness, issuing their own self-described nine-page "primer" on the financial crisis—one that attempts to lay the blame once again on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The picture they paint is reflective of a mindset they displayed last week when all four Republican members tried to ban the phrases "Wall Street," "shadow banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from the final report.

These terms are important to understanding what happened in the 2000s. But equally damning is this—the minority members of the FCIC got their facts wrong, their time frames jumbled, and their selection of relevant facts skewed to reflect their libertarian biases.


Politics Most Blatant Center for American Progress

Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”



Q Did the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter/Clinton caused it?


A "Since 1995 there has been essentially no change in the basic CRA rules or enforcement process that can be reasonably linked to the subprime lending activity. This fact weakens the link between the CRA and the current crisis since the crisis is rooted in poor performance of mortgage loans made between 2004 and 2007. "

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/20081203_analysis.pdf


"Another form of easing facilitated the rapid rise of mortgages that didn't require borrowers to fully document their incomes. In 2006, these low- or no-doc loans comprised 81 percent of near-prime, 55 percent of jumbo, 50 percent of subprime and 36 percent of prime securitized mortgages."

Q HOLY JESUS! DID YOU JUST PROVE THAT OVER 50 % OF ALL MORTGAGES IN 2006 DIDN'T REQUIRE BORROWERS TO DOCUMENT THEIR INCOME?!?!?!?

A Yes.




Q WHO THE HELL LOANS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO PEOPLE WITHOUT CHECKING THEIR INCOMES?!?!?

A Banks.

Q WHY??!?!!!?!

A Two reasons, greed and Bush's regulators let them


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

 

[Dad2three]

Conservatives Can't Escape Blame for the Financial Crisis


The onset of the recent financial crisis in late 2007 created an intellectual crisis for conservatives, who had been touting for decades the benefits of a hands-off approach to financial market regulation. As the crisis quickly spiraled out of control, it quickly became apparent that the massive credit bubble of the mid-2000s, followed by the inevitable bust that culminated with the financial markets freeze in the fall of 2008, occurred predominantly among those parts of the financial system that were least regulated, or where regulations existed but were largely unenforced.

Predictably, many conservatives sought to blame the bogeymen they always blamed



In March of 2008, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) blamed loans “to the minorities, to the poor, to the young” as causing foreclosures. Not long after, conservative commentator Michele Malkin went so far as to claim that illegal immigration caused the crisis.

This tendency to shift blame to minorities and poor people for the financial crisis soon developed into a well-honed narrative on the right. Swiftly and repeatedly many conservatives blamed affordable housing policies—particularly the affordable housing goals in place for the two government sponsored mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act that applies to regulated lenders such as banks and thrifts—for the massive financial crisis that occurred. This despite the fact that as recently as 2006 prominent conservatives, including FCIC Republican member and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Peter Wallison, were arguing that Fannie and Freddie needed to do more lending to low-income communities and minorities.


Last week, the Republican minority on the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission continued this tradition of willful blindness, issuing their own self-described nine-page "primer" on the financial crisis—one that attempts to lay the blame once again on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The picture they paint is reflective of a mindset they displayed last week when all four Republican members tried to ban the phrases "Wall Street," "shadow banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from the final report.

These terms are important to understanding what happened in the 2000s. But equally damning is this—the minority members of the FCIC got their facts wrong, their time frames jumbled, and their selection of relevant facts skewed to reflect their libertarian biases.


Politics Most Blatant Center for American Progress

Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”



Q Did the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter/Clinton caused it?


A "Since 1995 there has been essentially no change in the basic CRA rules or enforcement process that can be reasonably linked to the subprime lending activity. This fact weakens the link between the CRA and the current crisis since the crisis is rooted in poor performance of mortgage loans made between 2004 and 2007. "

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/20081203_analysis.pdf


"Another form of easing facilitated the rapid rise of mortgages that didn't require borrowers to fully document their incomes. In 2006, these low- or no-doc loans comprised 81 percent of near-prime, 55 percent of jumbo, 50 percent of subprime and 36 percent of prime securitized mortgages."

Q HOLY JESUS! DID YOU JUST PROVE THAT OVER 50 % OF ALL MORTGAGES IN 2006 DIDN'T REQUIRE BORROWERS TO DOCUMENT THEIR INCOME?!?!?!?

A Yes.




Q WHO THE HELL LOANS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO PEOPLE WITHOUT CHECKING THEIR INCOMES?!?!?

A Banks.

Q WHY??!?!!!?!

A Two reasons, greed and Bush's regulators let them


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

James Kennedy and Alan Greenspan, on the effect of mortgage equity withdrawals (MEWs) on the growth of the US economy.

Notice that in both 2001 and 2002, the US economy continued to grow on an annual basis (the "technical" recession was just a few quarters). Their work suggests that this growth was entirely due to MEWs. In fact, MEWs contributed over 3% to GDP growth in 2004 and 2005, and 2% in 2006. Without US homeowners using their homes as an ATM, the economy would have been very sluggish indeed, averaging much less than 1% for the six years of the Bush presidency. Indeed, as a side observation, without home equity withdrawals the economy would have been so bad it would have been almost impossible for Bush to have won a second term.

The Economic Blue Screen of Death - Thoughts From The Frontline - Investment Strategies Analysis Intelligence for Seasoned Investors.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

You forgot stupidity, moron. Conservatives are very much averse to willfull stupidity. You own it in spades, don't you?

 

[Dad2three]

Tax cuts create more fed revenues

Bush CEA Chair Mankiw: Claim That Broad-Based Income Tax Cuts Increase Revenue Is Not "Credible," Capital Income Tax Cuts Also Don't Pay For Themselves

Bush-Appointed Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke: "I Don't Think That As A General Rule Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves."


Bush Treasury Secretary Paulson: "As A General Rule, I Don't Believe That Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves."

Bush OMB Director Nussle: "Some Say That [The Tax Cut] Was A Total Loss. Some Say They Totally Pay For Themselves. It's Neither Extreme."


Bush CEA Chairman Lazear: "As A General Rule, We Do Not Think Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves."


Bush Economic Adviser Viard: "Federal Revenue Is Lower Today Than It Would Have Been Without The Tax Cuts."


Bush Treasury Official Carroll: "We Do Not Think Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves."


Reagan Chief Economist Feldstein: "It's Not That You Get More Revenue By Lowering Tax Rates, It Is That You Don't Lose As Much."

Feldstein In 1986: "Hyperbole" That Reagan Tax Cut "Would Actually Increase Tax Revenue."

Conservative Economist Holtz-Eakin: "No Serious Research Evidence" Suggests Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves."

 

[Dad2three]

You forgot stupidity, moron. Conservatives are very much averse to willfull stupidity. You own it in spades, don't you?

 

[TSJohnson]

Current conservative ideas are the radical liberal ideas of a hundred years ago that were fought just as stridently by the conservatives of those days. This has always been the case. Liberals come up with newer and better ideas. Conservatives fear and despise them. Liberals ultimately win out and convince the public to adopt them. The next generation of conservatives assume those ideas are conservative ones and defend them against their own generation's liberals who are trying to replace them with even further progress. Never in history has this pattern not held true.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

You forgot stupidity, moron. Conservatives are very much averse to willfull stupidity. You own it in spades, don't you?

Prove I'm wrong.

 

[Kosh]

Oh look a whole far left propaganda thread not based on reality.

How much does it pay to be a far left drone these days?

 

[Dad2three]

President George W. Bush
George W. Bush: Remarks on Signing the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
The American Presidency Project
June 7, 2001

"Liberals to this day continue to fanatically denounce the Reagan economic plan — known as supply-side economics — as an economic catastrophe. Dick Gephardt routinely warns against 'repeating the mistakes of the 1980s.' In a recent TV interview he proclaimed that it took the nation '15 years to dig out of the hole that Reagan put us in.'

The truth is that the nation was in quite a deep hole of economic collapse when Reagan was elected. We were in the midst of the worst economic depression in 1980-81 than at anytime since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Here is how Newsweek described the economy that Reagan inherited from Jimmy 'malaise' Carter: 'When Ronald Reagan steps into the White House next week, he will inherit the most dangerous economic crisis since Franklin Roosevelt took office 48 years ago.' That was no exaggeration."


lol

 

[Dad2three]

You forgot stupidity, moron. Conservatives are very much averse to willfull stupidity. You own it in spades, don't you?

Prove I'm wrong.

No, the POINT IS, I'm proving ALL of you cons wrong. PLEASE try to counter with actual HISTORICALLY correct refutation of ANY of my posits? Pretty please?