Yesterday, nearly five years after President Barack Obama first assumed office, the U.S. Senate removed what has been described by some progressives as the “single largest obstacle to meaningful economic recovery” when it was finally allowed to vote for the confirmation of Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) as the new Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).
In a vote allowed by a recent change to filibuster rules in the U.S. Senate, Watt will now replace Bush appointee Edward J. DeMarco, who was first appointed in 2008 and became the acting Director of the federal agency in 2009.
The FHFA oversees the government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which collectively own 60% of all mortgages in the United States. The agency also oversees 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, which, according to the Washington Post, “serve as major sources of funding for hundreds of banks.”
In a statement issued late yesterday, praising Watt’s confirmation and chiding Senate Republicans for their obstructionism in holding up this and many other uncontroversial Presidential nominations, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, highlighted the importance of the FHFA’s intended role in safe-guarding homeowners.
“Republicans in the U.S. Senate callously blocked the confirmation of the supremely qualified Congressman Mel Watt to be our nation’s Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency,” Becerra said. “Today, by a bipartisan vote of 57 to 41, Rep. Watt is on his way to lead the FHFA as America’s watchdog over the American Dream. What a difference a day makes when the Senate is free of the mischief of exploitive filibusters”…
The long-awaited up-or-down majority vote on Watt in the U.S. Senate comes in the wake of the change in the filibuster rules by the U.S. Senate Democratic majority just before the Thanksgiving recess last month. That change — which ends the use of the filibuster for Executive appointees and non-Supreme Court jurists — also allowed Democrats to approve two new D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal judges by a majority vote on Tuesday after Republicans had been blocking them for, literally, no reason at all other than they didn’t want to allow this President of the United States to seat any of his own nominees to that court.
Watt finally replaces DeMarco, who, according to Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, has steadfastly defied the Obama Administration’s effort to secure debt relief for the underwater homeowner victims of the 2008 collapse of the Wall Street casino, even after the U.S. Treasury Department offered to “pay up to 63 cents to the FHFA for every dollar of debt forgiven.”
Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Rob Portman (R-OH) joined Senate Democrats in voting to approve Watt’s nomination.
University of Richmond Law Professor Carl Tobias offered up an historical context for the unprecedented Republican abuse of the filibuster that had kept DeMarco in office these past five years. He notes that if the Senate had not invoked what we described as the “democracy option,” (others referred to it as the “nuclear option”), Watt would likely have been the first active member of Congress to be rejected for such a position since 1843.
But with confirmation comes responsibility. Watt, who avoided committing to a specific position on principal reduction when he testified before the Senate Banking Committee, will now have to both face that issue and decide whether he will reverse DeMarco’s heavy-handed instruction to Fannie and Freddie, directing the two mortgage giants to “‘limit, restrict or cease business activities’ in any jurisdiction” that elects to use eminent domain as a debt relief tool.
You just know Rob Portman is ready to switch parties.
Next up is the BUSHRATS infesting the DOJ, in “career positions”, allowing the DOJ to continue partisan persecutions even during President Obama’s two terms.
A key BUSHRAT demanded TWENTY YEARS in PRISON for former Governor Donald Siegleman, after two charges were dropped after a higher court ruling,leading to a resentencing last year.
‘Charges’ among utterly fabricated charges.
Free Don Siegleman
In Louis Franklin Sr’s own words:
“The recommended sentence, in brief, is calculated as follows:
base offense level for bribery – 10;
amount of loss and/or expected gain – add 20 levels;
more than one bribe – add 2 levels;
obstruction of justice – add 2 levels;
organizer/leader in the offense – add 4 levels;
upward departure for systematic pervasive government corruption – add 4 levels.
The resulting adjusted guideline level of 42 and criminal history category of I results in a
guideline range of 360 months to life imprisonment. ”
Note – after he is forced at the outset to deny Karl Rove influenced the prosecution.
Eric Holder was appointed by Ronald Reagan to The Superior Court of Washington, D.C. Holder is a consummate Beltway Insider. Eric Holder also plays a key role in sweetheart settlements of Wall Street fraud. Even to the point of shutting down investigations and covering up wrong doing.
Curiously appointed by President Obama. Maybe you should start cleaning up your own house before starting in on the neighbors.
Ed DeMarco, started in 1986, worked through The Clinton Years – which saw Clinton sign into law NAFTA, DOMA, and the repeal of Glass-Stegall which set the stage for The Great Financial Crisis. Worked during The Bush Years and remained at FHFA due to Republican obstructionism. Ed DeMarco has been involved in Federal Housing departments nearly his entire career.
As Acting Director, Ed DeMarco has been vilified by Democrats and the likes of Paul Krugman as the greatest single obstacle to any economic recovery. Ignoring the very real fact that no meaningful reform of Wall Street, essential to any recovery, would first have to be made. His crime? Refusing to make home modifications on home loans held by Fannie and Freddie that would result in massive taxpayer losses. DeMarco is required by law to refuse authorizing home modifications that result in taxpayer losses through Fannie and Freddie. Congress would have to change the law even today for FHFA to to make legal the home modifications.
DeMarco has, however, pursued successful lawsuits against Bank of America and other lenders. Bank of America. Barclays. Citigroup. Countrywide. Credit Suisse. Deutsche Bank. First Horizon. General Electric. Goldman Sachs. HSBC. JPMorgan Chase. Merril Lynch. Morgan Stanley. Nomura Holdings. RBS. Societe General.
What else has the government done? The National Home Foreclosure Settlement. Effectively shut down the States from pursuing lawsuits against Wall Street. Resulting in a $25 billion dollar settlement. A settlement that when examined closely, is a mockery. Home owners wrongfully foreclosed upon received a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. The process of deterring which home owners would receive the paltry sums in compensation was rife with conflict and fraud. Bank of America was investigated. The investigation was shutdown by Eric Holder . A cover up ensued.
And now there is Mel Watt. The New Captain of FHFA. Congressman since 1993. Supported S0PA. Responsible for gutting the Audit the Fed bill that was sponsored by Alan Grayson and Ron Paul. Also subject of an ethics Complaint for sponsoring legislation after meeting with fundraisers which drew large checks from financial companies,. Attempted to destroy the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Then there is Bank of America, headquartered in, surprise, Mel Watt’s home district. Mel Watt, who receives 45 percent of his campaign funding from? Finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) corporations. No conflict of interest there, right? Studies show that politicians vote the interests of wealthy donors.
Mel Watt. A friend of FIRE corporations. Looking out for the best interests of his corporate donors. Now running FHFA. Put there by President Obama and Democratic Senators, good friends to Wall Street, despite rhetoric and appearances. Mel Watt, now head of FHFA, cheered by Democratic voters.
And mortgage mods that may or may not happen through FHFA? Massive taxpayer losses. A Wall Street subsidy. Taxpayers paying for the crimes of Wall Street. Banks pay nothing.
What about FHFA lawsuits against mortgage lenders who committed fraud? Mel Watt, Democratic friend to banks, will have a lot to say about those.
Democratic voters have met the enemy and they are Democrats.
Its time to address the housing crisis in this country. And yes it is a crisis. Petitions should be written now to get Mr. Watt to fix the mess millions of people are in–namely those who are homeless. And this is America?