- Nov 26, 2011
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Newt Gingrich earned $1.6 million working for Freddie Mac during the housing bubble.
In one of the 2012 debates, he was asked about a $300,000 payment he received from the GSE in 2006, at the height of the bubble. He said he "offered them advice on precisely what they didn’t do" and warned them about the bubble.
That was a lie.
Here is Newt in 2007, just before it all came crashing down, praising the GSEs to the skies:
Market-Based Models Are Key to Transforming U.S. Government to a 21st Century Organization - Freddie Mac
"Certainly there is a lot of debate today about the housing GSEs, but I think it is telling that there is strong bipartisan support for maintaining the GSE model in housing. There is not much support for the idea of removing the GSE charters from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And I think it's clear why. The housing GSEs have made an important contribution to homeownership and the housing finance system. We have a much more liquid and stable housing finance system than we would have without the GSEs. And making homeownership more accessible and affordable is a policy goal I believe conservatives should embrace. Millions of people have entered the middle class through building wealth in their homes, and there is a lot of evidence that homeownership contributes to stable families and communities. These are results I think conservatives should embrace and want to extend as widely as possible. So while we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself."
Newt liked the GSEs so much, he said there should be MORE of them:
"I like the GSE model because it provides a more efficient, market-based alternative to taxpayer-funded government programs. It marries private enterprise to a public purpose. We obviously don't want to use GSEs for everything, but there are times when private enterprise alone is not sufficient to achieve a public purpose. I think private enterprise alone is not going to be able to help the Gulf region recover from the hurricanes, and government will not get the job done in a very effective or efficient manner. We should be looking seriously at creating a GSE to help redevelop this region. We should be looking at whether and how the GSE model could help us address the problem of financing health care. I think a GSE for space exploration ought to be seriously considered - I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today."
In one of the 2012 debates, he was asked about a $300,000 payment he received from the GSE in 2006, at the height of the bubble. He said he "offered them advice on precisely what they didn’t do" and warned them about the bubble.
That was a lie.
Here is Newt in 2007, just before it all came crashing down, praising the GSEs to the skies:
Market-Based Models Are Key to Transforming U.S. Government to a 21st Century Organization - Freddie Mac
"Certainly there is a lot of debate today about the housing GSEs, but I think it is telling that there is strong bipartisan support for maintaining the GSE model in housing. There is not much support for the idea of removing the GSE charters from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And I think it's clear why. The housing GSEs have made an important contribution to homeownership and the housing finance system. We have a much more liquid and stable housing finance system than we would have without the GSEs. And making homeownership more accessible and affordable is a policy goal I believe conservatives should embrace. Millions of people have entered the middle class through building wealth in their homes, and there is a lot of evidence that homeownership contributes to stable families and communities. These are results I think conservatives should embrace and want to extend as widely as possible. So while we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself."
Newt liked the GSEs so much, he said there should be MORE of them:
"I like the GSE model because it provides a more efficient, market-based alternative to taxpayer-funded government programs. It marries private enterprise to a public purpose. We obviously don't want to use GSEs for everything, but there are times when private enterprise alone is not sufficient to achieve a public purpose. I think private enterprise alone is not going to be able to help the Gulf region recover from the hurricanes, and government will not get the job done in a very effective or efficient manner. We should be looking seriously at creating a GSE to help redevelop this region. We should be looking at whether and how the GSE model could help us address the problem of financing health care. I think a GSE for space exploration ought to be seriously considered - I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today."
