Tag Archives: Government

Commentary

Vladimir Putin tells America that socialism doesn’t work

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Found this transcript of Putin’s remarks in the Wall Street Journal. The story was linked over on John Lott’s blog.

Putin opposes protectionism:

We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism. The leaders of the world’s largest economies agreed during the November 2008 G20 summit not to create barriers hindering global trade and capital flows. Russia shares these principles.

Putin opposes state intervention in the economy:

Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence is another possible mistake.

True, the state’s increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent.

Putin opposes big government:

The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly.

Putin opposes wealth redistribution and welfare:

Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.

Putin opposes bailouts and deficit spending:

And one more point: anti-crisis measures should not escalate into financial populism and a refusal to implement responsible macroeconomic policies. The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

Putin goes on to give recommendations on how to solve the problem.

I can’t believe that America and the USSR have switched places. What is the world coming to? Obama has unilaterally plunged us into bankruptcy and angered the entire world with his naive protectionism. How could we have been so ignorant as to have elected someone with no knowledge of economics whatsoever? During an economic crisis!

News

James Inhofe says that the Fairness Doctrine will affect Christian radio

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On his official blog, Senator James Inhofe links to an article from the Culture and Media Institute.  The article states that the Fairness Doctrine could affect Christian radio as well as conservative radio.

But, the return would also harm religious speech according to a senior Republican senator, James Inhofe, Okla., and the senior vice president of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), Craig Parshall. Both are warning religious broadcasting is facing a threat.

According to Parshall, there are about 2400 full power radio stations with a Christian format in the United States. About 40 percent of people who regularly listen do so specifically so they can listen to “teaching, preaching and talk” formats, he said. Christian radio and television have a total reach of 75 million he claimed.

Inhofe is quoted in the article as follows:

Those warning shots from the left have raised the possibility of the Fairness Doctrine’s reinstitution, one that Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., says Christian radio isn’t immune to. According to the senior senator from Oklahoma, if the federal government had to enforce a “Fairness Doctrine,” in whatever form it may take in the legislative process, it could open the door to lawsuits by advocacy groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“Religious messages are, often times, inherently political,” Inhofe said to the Culture & Media Institute. “Even when they are not, they could be considered controversial, and under the Fairness Doctrine as it once existed, controversial issues of public importance must be presented in an equitable and balanced manner. I am concerned that the ACLU and other liberal organizations will use this logic to file lawsuits against anyone who presents a message that they deem to be controversial. Though I believe these lawsuits would ultimately fail on First Amendment grounds, the chilling effect that the mere threat of a lawsuit will have on religious broadcasters could be substantial.”

Another concerned Republican is Cathy McMorris Rodgers. She is cited as follows:

“Over the last 20 years, conservative talk radio has done such an incredible job as far as getting out the message,” McMorris Rodgers said. “And although, ‘Fairness Doctrine’ may sound good, it’s just a clever title to say, ‘We’re going to shutdown conservative talk radio, and we’re going to potentially really hammer Christian radio, Christian television, and it’s very important to not allow this to move forward.”

Congressman Mike Pence also weights in:

“The American people cherish freedom, that’s why President Reagan repealed the so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine’ back in 1987,” Pence said. “This Depression-era government regulation would actually regulate the content of America’s airwaves and represents an existential threat to talk radio—and in particular—Christian talk radio.”

The article ends by discussing a legal case in which a Christian radio station was actually shut down by the FCC, because of the Fairness Doctrine. This happened in 1969, but the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987.
Jim Demint’s Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2009 is co-sponsored by some of my favorite conservatives, like Tom Coburn and James Inhofe.

Polemics

Democrats caused the recession and Republicans tried to stop it

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Who caused this economic downturn and what should we do about it?

Almost no one realizes that this entire subprime lending mess was created by the Community Reinvestment Act, which was passed by President Carter, a Democrat, in 1977. Later on in the 1990s, Bill Clinton, another Democrat, passed laws to enforce the original bill. The purpose of the CRA is to force banks to make risky loans to people who can’t afford to repay those loans.

The extremely left-wing Los Angeles Times explains in 1999 that the CRA was passed to force banks to make risky loans.

Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws.

…

In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains… Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down payments–or with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer’s income. That’s made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected.

The extremely left-wing New York Times noted in 1999 that the GSEs gave out the risky loans under duress from Democrat Bill Clinton.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

According to the New York Times in 2003, George W. Bush tried to stop the Democrats from ruining the economy with these forced loans. He was blocked by Democrats like Barney Frank.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

…

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Here are some video clips to prove that the Democrats opposed regulating  the GSEs. They are responsible for this mess, along with the irresponsible people who signed up for these loans that they could not repay.

Timeline of the events in the crisis: Bush was the first to recommend regulating the GSEs in April, 2001. In 2003, Bush tried to create a new federal agency to regulate the GSEs. He was blocked from doing so by the Democrats in the Senate. In 2005, Alan Greenspan warned that failing to regulate the GSEs could be a catastrophe. Again, Democrats blocked the effort to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The video shows Democrat Chuck Schumer protesting that regulation is not needed. In 2006, McCain and other Republicans introduced a bill to regulate the GSEs. Again, the Democrats voted against it and nothing happened.

Republicans and Democrats in their own words on the GSE accounting practices: Here we have Republican Rep. Richard Baker, Democrat, Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters, Democrat Rep. Gregory Meeks, Republican Rep. Ed Royce, Democrat Rep. Lacy Clay, Republican Rep. Christopher Shays, Democrat Rep. Arthur Davis, Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, Republican Rep. Don Manzullo. Shays notes that the GSEs make many contributions to Democrats who are blocking their regulation.

Fannie Mae CEO addresses Democrats: Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the “Family” and “Conscience” of Fannie Mae. The Democrats obstructed the regulation of the GSEs while taking political contributions from them, especially Obama. Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick and Jim Johnson were all executives at the GSEs and are all Democrats. Other Democrats like Penny Pritzker ran other mortgage banks into the ground, and now work for Obama.

According to Human Events, Obama himself sued banks on behalf of ACORN, to force the banks to make these risky loans.

Obama sued Citibank under the Community Reinvestment Act in a typical ACORN-style lawsuit to force the bank to make these risky loans.  ACORN filed many of this type of lawsuit alleging racism in all of them.

According to opensecrets.org, Obama was also the second-highest recipient of political contributions from the GSEs. The American Spectator notes that he included 5.2 billion dollars of taxpayer money for ACORN in the porkulus bill.

UPDATE 1: The Achoress just posted even more of the history of this mess here. She has a link to Nice Deb’s post which contains about 2 dozen warnings issued by the Bush administration about the looming crisis, including 17 warnings in 2008 alone.

UPDATE 2:  Here’s an even better timeline than mine, by Roger Kimball.