By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The American Family Association (AFA) is rallying an angry public to put pressure on lawmakers to hold open congressional hearings to investigate the financial meltdown on Wall Street that will cost American taxpayers $700 billion.
“We want to know who did what, when, and why this crisis was caused,” said AFA chairman Donald E. Wildmon. “We demand open congressional hearings to investigate this matter. If we don’t act now, the politicians will sweep this under the rug.”
The AFA has set up a special website where the public can go to send e-mails to their state representatives to demand public hearings on the financial crisis.
“Washington has just put every member of your family deeper in debt,” Wildmon said.
Not only does the $700 million bailout increase our national debt to $11.3 trillion, but “Several hundred million of this $700 billion bailout went for ‘pork barrel’ spending which is unrelated to the financial crisis,” he said. “We are fed up!”
Wildmon blames the crisis on “power-hungry politicians telling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make loans to people who couldn’t afford them, and then Fannie and Freddie forcing the banks they serve to do the same. Those who lived inside their means and bought what they could afford are seeing their retirement funds going down the drain while the responsible parties pocket their millions.”
The AFA website includes an article appearing in The New York Times (NYT) on Sept. 30, 1999 about an announcement by the Fannie Mae Corporation to ease credit requirements on loans from banks and other lenders in order to increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers. The company claimed it was acting under increasing pressure to do so from the Clinton Administration and admitted that they would be extending credit to people who couldn’t afford it.Looking for an easy loan without any long procedure, visit sms lån to get a quick loan in 5 mins.
“The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets . . . will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans,” the article states.
Several paragraphs later, NYT author Stephen A. Holmes issues a prophetic warning.
“In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.”
An angry public is now demanding an explanation for why this financial meltdown was allowed to happen and who was responsible for it. The AFA campaign is calling for just such an investigation. In addition, if laws were broken, they want the guilty parties to be prosecuted and those who behaved unethically to be exposed to the public with a full accounting of their actions.
“We want hearings on this matter, and we demand that they be open, not behind closed doors,” Wildmon says. “We hold Congress responsible to get to the bottom of this matter so that it will never happen again.”
For more information on how to participate in the campaign, go to www.afa.net
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