Just Clinton? No one else had a hand in it?

Can't have it both ways...

Well, Clinton wasn't the only one, Newtered Ginrich, and the Contract for America, was in play then also. Congress has used Fannie and Freddie for years, and those corps have showered Congressmen with lots of campaign money over the years.

Vito is totally correct about the mortgage guidelines being re written by Congress. When I was appraising in the 80-90's during the S&L failures, the income to debt ratios was around 38%. Now it is around 53%. That is doomed for failure at that high a number.
But if you go back to the "old" numbers and use sound underwriting principles, the housing industry will totally collapse. I doubt anyone knows how to write a sound mortgage for someone that can't qualify. A 50-75 year mortgage? So that means there is going to be a very large number of homes on the market for a much longer period of time. Putting more downward pressure on values. People working their butts off to make their mortgage payments, might just decide to walk away from their property when the value of their property keeps declining year after year, leading to more foreclosures. A vicious cycle.
The whole game is anybodies guess now. I doubt anyone in the adminstration has any idea how this is going to work out. "Cash is King" is going to be around for a number of years.

Of course everyone understands that with the government basically printing a TRILLION $ for the bailout, this lowers the value of the dollar. This will immediately cause the price of OIL to rise again. So get ready to pay more at the pump, more for home heating oil, etc.,etc. .

A company that is "Too big to be allowed to fail" is too big to be allowed to exist.

Welcome the the Fascist phase of America.

Anyone see this article?

Is Paulson's Bailout Proposal Constitutional? No John Nichols
Tue Sep 23, 12:07 AM ET



The Nation -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson draft proposal for the bailout of struggling financial-services firms sought to make himself the most powerful unelected official in American history through his proposal to take charge of vast sectors of the U.S. economy -- setting policy, buying and selling assets, determining whether financial institutions thrive or collapse -- with no oversight.

Under Paulson's draft plan, Congress and the courts would have been barred from reviewing or challenging his moves to stabilize financial markets -- effectively making him the nation's economic czar.

That's not just a dangerous power grab for economic and politic reasons. It's unconstitutional.

Paulson's power grab was specifically spelled out by the treasury secretary in Section 8 of his proposal, which read: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who sought his party's nomination for president this year but has arguably emerged as a more influential player in his role as the congressional point-man on a crisis that is bigger than an election, pushed back on Monday.

Dodd offered a plan to give Paulson extraordinary -- and, frankly, excessive -- powers. But the senator also moved to place tighter time limits on the period in which the treasury secretary would be able to exercise those powers, to establish an special inspector general to monitor the program and to set up an emergency board with two congressional appointees to provide oversight.

Ultimately, Dodd and his compatriots should be able to restrain Paulson's power grab.

But they must be as specific in their constrain of Paulson as the treasury secretary was in his overreach.

Section 8 of the Paulson proposal must be stripped in its entirety.

There can be no vagueness, no gray area.

Otherwise, the treasury secretary would become a more powerful -- and unaccountable -- figure even than our powerful and unaccountable president. And, as such, he would be operating in direct conflict with the Constitution.

The nation's essential document makes it clear that every member of the executive branch is subject to legislative and judicial review.

Congress cannot delegate its oversight authority to a cabinet member, even in a time of turmoil. The opening section of the Constitution gives all -- emphasis on all -- legislative authority to the House and Senate. Under the well-established constitutional doctrine of nondelegation, Congress cannot cede that power in the manner that Paulson's draft plan proposed -- or, for that matter, in any manner whatsoever.

"It's hard to run afoul of the nondelegation doctrine, but if anything does, this is probably it," Jamie Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University's Washington College of Law, told the Maryland Daily Record, a newspaper that deals with legal issues. "How does Congress just give away $700 billion and tell the Secretary of the Treasury to figure out the rest?"

Raskin, a state senator, said that the doctrine of nondelegation "was the first thing I thought of when I heard that the administration's entire plan was on three pages and that the third page said $700 billion would be allocated to this purpose [and] programmatic details are to be fleshed out by the treasury department."

It is good that Raskin and a few others are reading the fine print.

It is necessary that Congress do the same.

The more I hear and don't hear about "the plan" the less I am liking it.
And giving a unelected official vast new powers not provided for by our Constitution is extremely DANGEROUS!
And a "oversight" committee of politicians sure won't help either.

If this was solely Clinton's fault, the Republicans would be all over it in this election year. Making sure the public knew that it's the Democrats fault for fleecing the taxpayer of $700 big B's would guarantee a McCain win.

But the silence from the Republicans is deafening. Not a single word blaming Bubba or any other Democrats.

What up with that??

Could it be the Republicans hands are just as dirty as anyone else's?

Is the money in their pockets just as dirty as anyone else's?

I'm going to predict continuing total silence in the political party versus party blame game on this ongoing robbery. In fact, I'm betting on some unprecedented bypartisan cooperation while the taxpayer drops his pants and assumes the position.

If we are going to bail out these companies....then it is only fair the American citizens also get a bail out.

300 million citizens in the USA.
Give each citizen 1 million dollars to pay off their credit cards, mortgages and loans, and any back taxes.

Deal? ...or no deal? :?

Sounds fair to me. :)

I second that.