AP: Old people "are stealing jobs from young people."

Our "free" Wars on Crime, Drugs, Poverty, and now Terror, don't seem to be doing much either.

 

This has been on of the worst periods of unemployment in generations. We tried "spending our way" out of this quagmire for a while now, but it's not working. Just look at Detroit. I'm sure they were also looking for the "recovery" while they over spent. How much longer must we wait for a "recovery"... Actually, aren't we suppose to be in one now????? Time to do something else...

Yes, I agree we are feeling the pain. However, states like Texas, South Dakota, etc are not... perhaps, it's time to follow their examples....

 

If you cherry pick a few of his best housing bubble inflated years, he had a couple million in job growth.

Clinton had 22 million added jobs with higher taxes. Even cherry picking Bush's best years, you get a couple million.

Your hope is just that, hope. The tax cuts did nothing but run up trillions more debt. And make the 1% a lot richer.

The point isn't whether it's Bush's fault. The point is those job losses weren't because of Nafta.

I'm not sure whether they got their data, but here's the data on manufacturing jobs (January) published by the BLS:

Year - Manufacturing jobs
1939 9077
1940 9927
1941 10993
1942 12965
1943 15532
1944 16439
1945 15669
1946 12719
1947 14328
1948 14438
1949 13867
1950 13161
1951 14950
1952 15067
1953 16067
1954 15440
1955 15034
1956 15882
1957 15970
1958 15130
1959 14998
1960 15687
1961 14863
1962 15322
1963 15545
1964 15715
1965 16245
1966 17143
1967 18033
1968 18040
1969 18432
1970 18424
1971 17280
1972 17283
1973 18276
1974 18788
1975 17344
1976 17287
1977 17803
1978 18593
1979 19388
1980 19282
1981 18639
1982 18047
1983 16705
1984 17630
1985 18009
1986 17686
1987 17465
1988 17790
1989 18057
1990 17796
1991 17329
1992 16840
1993 16791
1994 16855
1995 17261
1996 17208
1997 17298
1998 17619
1999 17427
2000 17283
2001 17102
2002 15585
2003 14869
2004 14291
2005 14258
2006 14211
2007 14008
2008 13725
2009 12556
2010 11460
2011 11624
2012 11841
2013 11965

Source: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

Manufacturing jobs have been on a shrinking trend since 1981, as the US economy has moved from a manufacturing based to service based economy. It was on a downward trend when Clinton took office too, before Nafta was passed in 1994. In fact, the number of manufacturing jobs increased while Clinton was president.

Manufacturing jobs did decrease a bit in Clinton's last couple years. But was that a result of Nafta, passed 4 years earlier, or the result of the investment tax cuts passed in 1997 (and again in 2001) that slashed investment tax income from 28% to just 15%?

When our tax code incentivizes people to make money in speculative investment instead of production and earning, should we be surprised that we see stock and housing bubbles instead of growth in production and manufacturing?

 

yeah, but he had help from the internet bubble and help from fannie and freddie mac. Also, It's easier to having a thriving economy when you are not dealing with the post 9/11 environment. Not to mention, I think both houses were mostly controlled by republicans when clinton was in office (I could be wrong here, I cannot remember).

 

Oh, we didn't try very hard did we? In the worst recession in 80 years, we spent about $500 billion over the course of two years. That amounts to about 1.5% of the economy. How much stimulus effect do you really expect from a meager 1.5% of the economy stimulus spending?

And since 2009, we've actually gone into austerity mode.

Compare how we "spent our way" out of the recession under Reagan and Bush, to Obama:

(fiscal years)
Reagan
Spending increase, 1981-1985: +39.5%.
Total Government employment, 1981-1985: +607,0000

Bush
Spending increase, 2001-2005: +32.7%
Total Government employment, 2001-2005: +603,000

Obama
Spending increase, 2009-2013: -1.89%
Total Government employment, 2009-2013: -667,000

We've actually cut spending over the past 4 years, unprecedented in modern history.

What we've tried is austerity. And it worked here about as well as it did in Europe.

I'll pass on injecting a (*)(*)(*)(*)load of oil and gas into the Everglades to create jobs like in the Dakotas and Texas. But why would we want to follow their examples?

 

Yeah but conservatives and Republicans of the day told us that the Clinton tax increase would wreck the economy and destroy jobs. Could they have been more wrong?

Conservatives and Republicans told us that cutting taxes would juice up the economy and jobs. We slashed taxes under Bush, had a crappy economy even with the housing bubble, a net loss of jobs, and ended up with the worst recession in 80 years. Could they have been more wrong?

And now we are hearing the same old song.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'"

 

Look at those numbers again.Clinton signed Free Trade with China in the later part of 2000. Look at manufacturing job loss from that point on Part of that loss would also come from NAFTA.

 

All that means is that our private sector may have been earning too much to consider investing in better technologies which may require newer facilities with which to manufacture better products at lower cost, through the use of any required labor. Or, that our alleged Capitalists don't really believe in Capitalism when they can some up with some alternative and get bailed out.

 

WOW
What a spin on the facts
The things listed below do not mean anything right is all about taxes

Inflation
stopping fixed incomes big enough

Outsourcing
job shipped overseas

Influx of illegal aliens
people willing to work for low wages

 

Obama should resign so someone can have his job.

 

Your motivation for comparing the Bush job record to Obama's, despite real differences in the context of that record, is irrelevant.

Try being honest about your motivations and then maybe you'll have a clue when you attack me.

This is so off topic. What is the point?
The left forced banks to lend to people that had a better chance of being queen of England than paying off hundreds of thousands in home loans.
It's a red herring, at very best. Yes, the right advocates self regulation but not non regulation.

Yes. So "necessary and appropriate" that Obama somehow neglected to inform congress (and the people) that the hundreds of billions he requested would wind up in the hands, by and large, of Obama supporters from Obama friendly states, businesses and unions. Simply put the money taken to benefit everyone did not quite do so due to the fact that Obama funneled most of that money (approximately 75% by some estimates) to his pals and political cohorts. Is that clear enough for you?

You might finally have a point here. His economic stimulus rip off may have been more of a con job than extortion itself. He certainly got his hundreds of billions under false pretenses. Shovel ready jobs my ass!

It's a false dishonest choice as city, county and state administrators used the boogey man specter of a chaotic society without schools or emergency services as a way of extorting (that word again) compliance from frightened, sheep like taxpayers.
Government always does that when the fear that the endlessly open spigot of money might get turned off. It happened again in the most recent
budget shut down. It will happen in the future, doubtlessly.

A demand for more fiscally responsible government caused government to say "You want a leaner government? Fine. Let's start by laying off policemen, firemen and teachers and let's see how you like that!"

A disingenuous questions requires no serious answer.

 

Read the thread so you can stop babbling nonsense.

Try reading the thread before you jump in with baseless ad hom personal attacks so you can stop babbling nonsense.

You brought up the housing bubble. Don't bring up off topic points if you don't want a response to them.

Baseless regurgitate RW propaganda nonsense. No one "forced" banks to invest in hundreds of billions of subprime securitizations.

I didn't see you elected to speak for the right.

Your ideologically driven babble is inaccurate. Numerous independent studies found that the stimulus created or saved 2-3 million jobs as it was designed to do.

Nonsense. State govts cut their budgets drastically. Even with the marginal stimulus we had, in fact they eliminated almost 700,000 government positions during the recession.

That is false, Govt doesn't always do that. What Govt did under Reagan and Bush was to add hundreds of thousands of more Govt jobs in a recovering economy.

(fiscal years)
Reagan
Total Government employment, 1981-1985: +607,0000

Bush
Total Government employment, 2001-2005: +603,000

Obama
Total Government employment, 2009-2013: -667,000

A disingenuous dodge to a completely legitimate question. You yourself have railed about how the Stimulus money went to "Obama voters," which means cops, firemen and teachers. I've cited the numbers showing how state government cut hundreds of thousands of workers even with the stimulus.

You dodged the question because you have no answer for it. But for the stimulus hundreds of thousands more cops, teachers and firemen would have been in the unemployment lines, and things would only have been worse. And of course, the partisan RW rabble would have been blaming Obama for it.

 

We need you in the emergency unemployment thread, people need ya to tell em all how awesome the economy is and how obama has saved us....

 

I agree the tax hikes didn't hurt unemployment when the internet bubble was still alive. When it popped, that was another story - the Clinton tax didn't help with employment.

More people were employed under Bush than Obama even with the tax cuts. The worst recession is still going on IMHO, and it is happening under Obama. However, a lot of people do give credit Obama for prolonging the recession. After it's all done and said, the recession will have lasted longer under Obama than Bush; the "unofficial" recession has been the longest in generations.

Texas' economy is doing well.. Perhaps we should start taking advice from that state.

 

Reagan also added close to twenty million jobs. Many government jobs were created by Reagan in his military buildup against the Soviets. Congress has made Obama cut thousands of government jobs by cutting government programs and spending. Many more to come in 2014, plus pay freezes.

 

OK, let's assume that all the manufacturing job loss was from free trade agreements. Let's also ignore the jobs created by export and import and the benefit to consumers of being able to buy less expensive products. Let's also ignore more jobs because of greater exporting. Let's also assume that all of the job losses came from outsourcing, and none from the housing bubble collapse and the Great Recession.

Even making all those assumptions, you're still only accounting for a fraction of the job losses in the GR.

In 2007, with the UR at about 4 1/2%, we had about 14 million in manufacturing. In January 2010, at or near the depth of the recession, the number had dropped about a 2.5 million to 11.5 million.

In that same time frame, you had an loss of about 8 million people.

So even if we blame every manufacturing job loss on outsourcing and none on the recession, you still don't have outsourcing accounting for even a third of the jobs lost during the GR.

There were obviously other factors driving job loss than outsourcing because of free trade agreements.

 

It was about 16 million, 1 million of which were new government jobs.

I don't have the data but I would agree that would account for most if not all of the increase in federal government jobs.

The federal workforce has only marginally decreased since Obama took office. The bulk of the government employment decrease has been in the states.

 

Because the federal reserve punishes savers by inflating away their nest egg and their earnings.

And NSA spying programs, and the war on drugs, and wars in Iraq, and Solyndra, don't forget those...

 

They didn't hurt them before during or after the internet bubble. High tech jobs were only a small part of the work place.

You mean before the housing bubble blew up? Yes, by a couple million. We have not yet recouped all the job losses from the GR, but a the current rate of growth that should happen sometime later this year.

A recession is when the economy is contracting. That stopped happening long ago. I agree we are still feeling the effects of the worse recession in 80 years.

Of course. RW propaganda fed partisans blaaaame Obaaaaaama for everything.

Of course the recovery has been longer than Bush's. It was far, far deeper and more severe. In the worst year of the 2001 "recession" (if you can call it that) the economy *grew* by 1.3% real.

Typical of the substitute for argument I've come to expect from our right wing friends.

Worst rate of high school graduation.
Worst in percentage of uninsured population.
3d from worst in percentage of low income people covered by Medicaid
Worst in carbon dioxide emission.
Worst in nitrogen oxide emission.
2d from worst in ozone concentration
Average per capita income
4th from worst poverty rate.

No thanks.

 

Well hell yes there were job loses when the housing market and the banks collapsed. No one was building or buying homes. Banks weren't lending. Do you want to blame that on Bush? Clinton forced the banks to lend more to the poor. Threatened them that they couldn't add banks unless they showed where they made a big improvement in lending to the poor. Banks dropped a lot of their lending qualifications to do it and and came out with new types of loans to help the poor qualify, like interest only loans for so many years. Graduating mortage rates that go up and down. Lower interest rates with a balloon payment after so many years. That's what helped so many qualify and then lose their homes. You can't blame Bush for that.


U.S. to Push Banks on Credit in Poor Areas

December 09, 1993|ROBERT A. ROSENBLATT and CHRIS KRAUL | TIMES STAFF WRITERS

WASHINGTON — The Clinton Administration, hoping to generate billions of dollars in new loans for small businesses and residents in poor and minority neighborhoods, on Wednesday unveiled proposed new rules requiring banks and thrifts to aggressively seek new customers in all parts of their communities.

Federal regulators will now be much tougher in demanding that financial institutions make credit available to the poor as well as the affluent, said Comptroller of the Currency Eugene A. Ludwig, whose recent travels have taken him from South-Central Los Angeles to a reservation in North Carolina to hear complaints about the lack of credit in low-income areas.

Ludwig told a White House news conference that the proposals "will channel billions of dollars a year in new credit into America's distressed communities, while at the same time reducing unnecessary burdens on the banks."
proposed rules do not need congressional approval and are likely to become effective next spring following a period of public comment. Bankers generally greeted the proposals with restraint while community groups were more enthusiastic.

The rules would make enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act much more rigorous. The CRA requires that lenders be sensitive to community needs, but it has been ignored for most of its 15-year history, with banks getting a satisfactory rating for submitting a marketing plan even if it produced hardly any loans.

Regulators said they will begin evaluating banks and thrifts according to three tests:

* Lending: Loans should be granted to small businesses, individuals and small, family-owned farms. If a bank has 10% of the Los Angeles market, for example, it should have a roughly comparable share in the city's poor neighborhoods as well. However, there are no specific tests. "We will not use formulas or quotas or credit allocation," Ludwig said. "It doesn't work."

* Service: Branches should be "accessible to low- and moderate-income areas," and there should be services, such as low-cost checking, to promote credit availability, according to a statement of goals prepared by Ludwig's office.

* Investment: Banks should invest in organizations or programs "that foster community development, small and minority-owned business development, or affordable housing lending," the comptroller's office said. A bank, for example, might join with a local church to find borrowers and buyers for a new housing development.

Not every financial lender must meet all three tests, regulators said. A savings and loan specializing in home mortgages would not be expected to make business loans. But it might join a cooperative effort by other lenders to help generate business loans for the neighborhood.

The main impact of the new policies will fall on the bigger banks. Those with assets of less than $250 million, representing 75% of the industry but holding just 15% of total industry assets, will be given streamlined examinations under the CRA, something they had long sought.

Only recently have regulators been using the CRA as a threat to reject mergers or new branch applications--and then only in unusual circumstances. Now, Ludwig said, the CRA will be a key part of every bank's regular examination.

Under the current practice, each lender is given a CRA rating that, if unsatisfactory, makes it hard to receive approval to acquire another bank or open new branches. But, under the new proposals, federal regulators would be prepared to use cease-and-desist orders or impose stiff penalties to force lenders to change their behavior, he said.

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-12-09/news/mn-65506_1_community-banks

 

http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/2...tgage-scandal/

Affordable housing is liberal code word for “giving risky people loans” while shouting ‘discrimination and racism.’ Forcing banks to meet quotas by giving unqualified borrowers subprime loans was an idea of Andrew Cuomo, who ran HUD under Bill Clinton.

Look at where this ideology got us.

Investors.com reports:


Subprime Scandal: Andrew Cuomo is running for governor of a state whose economy he helped sink when he ran the agency regulating Fannie and Freddie’s “affordable housing” mission.

The Democratic candidate’s role in the subprime mortgage scandal has not come out in New York’s gubernatorial debates or in the media. But he’s a chief reason Fannie and Freddie invested so heavily in the subprime loans still plaguing the mortgage giants and the overall economy.

As HUD secretary from 1997 to 2001, Cuomo pushed government-sponsored Fannie and Freddie to buy more home loans to low-income borrowers with impaired credit, in an attempt to end what he thought was lending discrimination against minorities. By 1999, they had committed $1 trillion in such high-risk loans.

But Cuomo still was not happy. So in 2000, he hiked their affordable-housing quota to 50%. That meant Fannie and Freddie had to devote fully half their mortgage financing to “underserved” borrowers with unproven or damaged credit. To help them meet that drastic new goal, Cuomo pressured them to relax their lending criteria and invest in subprime loans. He also authorized them to buy subprime securities.

This isn’t ancient history. The quota Cuomo set in 2000 remained in force through 2004 and beyond. Four years after he required Fannie and Freddie to commit half their lending to support affordable housing, they together commanded almost half the subprime securities market.

Credit quality suffered while risk soared. By 2005, most of the loans they’d bought had down payments of 3% or less. Many had no down payment at all. By 2008, Fannie and Freddie had drowned in a toxic soup of bad subprime paper.

Relevance to New York voters? Like the rest of taxpayers, they are on the hook for an estimated $1 trillion in losses in what could end up being the mother of all bailouts. Meanwhile, related foreclosures are still rattling Wall Street.

Subprime lender Countrywide Financial was Fannie’s biggest customer, and now it’s Bank of America’s biggest headache. BofA can’t finalize foreclosures and liquidate the toxic debt it inherited from Countrywide until it untangles the chain of title on the subprime mortgages its subsidiary originated and sold to Fannie.

Some think Bank of America was forced to buy CountryWide. Remember, Chris Dodd received sweetheart deals from CountryWide and just happens to be the one who wrote the financial reform bill that conveniently left out regulating Freddie and Fannie.


Ex-Fannie chief credit officer Ed Pinto blames Cuomo for the mess. He says he and other HUD officials “should have known the risks were large,” adding that “Cuomo was pushing mortgage bankers to make loans and basically saying you have to offer a loan to everybody.” Why? Because like Bill Clinton, whose housing policies he was following, Cuomo championed the faulty notion that “racist” bankers erected barriers to minority homebuyers, creating a “mortgage gap.” And he was hellbent on closing it.

 

Bush warned Democrats about Fannie Mae over a dozen times dating back to 2001 or 2002. Democrats refused to believe that there was any trouble with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, even calling regulators a liar

. http://www.youtube.com/embed/cMnSp4qEXNM

 

Please point out where I blamed it on anyone. I didn't even mention Bush in my post. A little obsessive, aren't we?

What I pointed out is that the vast bulk of the job losses were from the housing bubble and collapse and recession it caused -- not from Nafta or other free trade agreements.

The rest of your post is just partisan RW propaganda nonsense that has been rebutted a hundred times in this forum.

 

You mean except when he blocked the only bill passed by a Republican controlled chamber of Commerce to regulate F/F?

Or do you mean except for the fact his administration told everyone that F/F were adequately capitalized, right up though June 2008?


March 31, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Armando Falcon, Jr., Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), has determined that the Enterprises were adequately capitalized under OFHEO’s capital standards as of December 31, 2002.
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/805/cc33103.pdf

March 31, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Armando Falcon, Jr., Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), has determined that the Enterprises were adequately capitalized under OFHEO’s capital standards as of December 31, 2003. Although OFHEO imposed a capital surcharge for Freddie Mac in January 2004 due to increased operational risk, that surcharge does not impact past periods, including the fourth quarter 2003.
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/798/capclass33104.pdf

March 31, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Armando Falcon, Jr., Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), has classified Freddie Mac as adequately capitalized as of December 31, 2004.
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/792/capclassfreddie33105.pdf


March 31, 2006
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Stephen Blumenthal, Acting Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), classified Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as adequately capitalized as of December 31, 2005.
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/787/capclass33106.pdf

March 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, DC — James B. Lockhart III, Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, classified Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as adequately capitalized as of December 31, 2006. Fannie Mae’s classification is based on estimated numbers submitted by Fannie Mae and not financial statements released to shareholders. Freddie Mac’s classification is based upon numbers consistent with the information statement and annual report it released on March 23, 2007.
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/2235/4Q06capclass.pdf


Sept 27, 2007
WASHINGTON, DC . James B. Lockhart, Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, classified Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as adequately capitalized as of June 30, 2007.
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/780/OFHEO_mincap_2q07.PDF

March 11, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC . James B. Lockhart, Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, classified Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as adequately capitalized as of December 31, 2007. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have publicly released financial results for year-end 2007 and OFHEO.s results are consistent with those publicly released data.

http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/777/OFHEO_mincap_4q07.PDF


June 9, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC . James B. Lockhart, Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the safety and soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, classified Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as adequately capitalized as of March 31, 2008. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have publicly released financial results for the first quarter 2008 and OFHEO.s results are consistent with those publicly released data.

http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/776/OFHEO_mincap_1q08.PDF

October 9, 2008
FHFA ANNOUNCES SUSPENSION OF CAPITAL CLASSIFICATIONS DURING CONSERVATORSHIP AND DISCLOSES MINIMUM AND RISK-BASED CAPITAL CLASSIFICATIONS AS UNDERCAPITALIZED FOR THE SECOND QUARTER 2008 FOR FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC ... Director Lockhart is classifying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as of June 30, 2008, prior to the conservatorship, as undercapitalized using FHFA.s discretionary authority provided in the statute.

http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/775/FHFA_Suspension.PDF
http://www.fhfa.gov/Default.aspx?Page=178&ListNumber=0&ListYear=2002

Ooops.

 

There was no housing bubble while Clinton was president. Housing prices blew up to absurd levels then started collapsing on Bush's watch.

But you forgot to include this in your diabribe:

BUSH ADMINISTRATION UNVEILS NEW HOMEOWNERSHIP INITIATIVE
Martinez Announces $1000 Homebuyer Cash Back Incentive

http://archives.hud.gov/news/2002/pr02-075.cfm


“We can put light where there’s darkness, and hope where there’s despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home.” — President Bush, Oct. 15, 2002
White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?pagewanted=all

Bush drive for home ownership fueled housing bubble
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-admin.4.18853088.html?pagewanted=all


American Dream Downpayment Initiative The American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) was signed into law on December 16, 2003. The American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act authorized up to $200 million annually. ADDI helped first-time homebuyers with the biggest hurdle to homeownership: downpayment and closing costs. The program was created to assist low-income first-time homebuyers in purchasing single-family homes by providing funds for downpayment, closing costs, and rehabilitation carried out in conjunction with the assisted home purchase.

http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordablehousing/programs/home/addi/

Bush Campaign Promotes Great American Dream
THE NATION Homeownership: The president's program aims to help people with low incomes, particularly Latinos and African Americans.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/16/nation/na-bush16


National Homeownership Month, 2005
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

More Americans than ever own their own homes, but we must continue to work hard so that every family has an opportunity to realize the American Dream. In 2002, I announced a goal to add 5.5 million new minority homeowners by the end of the decade. Since then, we have added 2.3 million new minority households. My Administration has also set a goal of adding 7 million new affordable homes to the market within the next 10 years. In my FY 2006 budget, I proposed a single family housing tax credit and two mortgage programs -- the Zero Downpayment mortgage and the Payment Incentives program -- to help more families achieve homeownership. In 2003, I signed the American Dream Downpayment Act, and I have proposed more than $200 million to continue the American Dream Downpayment Initiative to provide downpayment assistance to thousands of American families. By promoting initiatives such as financial literacy, tax incentives for building affordable homes, voucher programs, and Individual Development Accounts, we are strengthening our communities and improving citizens' lives. [/QUOTE]

+++

Bush's HUD relaxes rules on lending:

In 2000, because of a re-assessment of the housing market by HUD, anti-predatory lending rules were put into place that disallowed risky, high-cost loans from being credited toward affordable housing goals. In 2004, these rules were dropped and high-risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae

Bush' OFHEO, the WH agency responsible for oversight of Fannie you never heard of because you only look at right wing propaganda, dramatically increases the level of conforming loans. It increased the "conforming loan" limits from $252k in 2000 to $417k in 2007. This made it easier to get loans for more expensive houses and reduced the number classified as subprime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conforming_loan[/QUOTE]

Here, from 2002, is President George W. Bush, saying Freddie is “dismantling barriers” to help more people have home ownership, how “deserving families who have bad credit histories” can own homes, and that “the low income home buyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else.”

http://www.alan.com/2010/10/27/flas...wnership-for-those-with-bad-credit-histories/


The affordable housing goal levels set by the WH thru HUD:

42% 1997-2000
50% 2001-2004
52% 2005
53% 2006
55% 2007
56% 2008

http://research.stlouisfed.org/conferences/gse/Weicher.pdf page 5.

Issue Brief: HUD’s AFFORDABLE LENDING GOALS FOR FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC

HUD has estimated that 11.7 million dwelling units were financed by conventional conforming mortgages in 1998, and that the GSEs provided financing for 55 percent of these units.

In March 2000, HUD issued a proposed rule, significantly increasing the GSEs’ affordable housing goals for the post-2000 period, and this rule was finalized in October. For each year from 2001 through 2003, the goals are: ...

These goals remain in effect for the post-2003 period unless modified prior to 2004.

http://www.huduser.org/Publications/PDF/gse.pdf

- - - Updated - - -

You must have me confused with someone else. When have I said the economy was doing "awesome"?