That's Some Fine Oversightin' There, Chairman

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the House Banking Committee, on the bailout:

 "I think we have to recognize the reality that we don't have a choice now of debating whether this is a good or a bad thing."

Who cares if it might makes us worse off.  Just do something, dammit!

Hat tip:  Caleb Brown.

Comments

[RK Jones]

Why won't anyone think of the precautionary principle.

[joe]

I clicked the link to find out what the context is, and there's none provided in the article, either.

There is no way to tell what Frank's point was. There's no way to tell what the word "this" is even supposed to refer to.

[P Brooks]

"We never intended to do this without oversight."

Hank Paulson is a lying sack of shit.

[Mad Max]

I'm willing to give Rep. Frank the benefit of some doubt, because he has sometimes shown a certain degree of intelligence and wisdom, to the extent his Democrap affiliation permits. I will wait until the final vote on these socialist bills to decide whether Rep. Frank is out of line or not.

[toshiro_mifune]

P Brooks - Remember he was CO of Goldman, so he's a no-good thieving lying sack of shit.

[ChicagoTom]

This is gonna be interesting...

I bet that there will be a majority of Dems who vote for a bailout plan, and then the GOP is going to campaign against the Dems for voting for the bailout -- giving them a "socialist Dem" line of attack and also allowing the GOP to distance themselves from Bush.

The Dems are so fucking stupid having bought into Bush's "sky is falling" attitude. And it's gonna cost them dearly.

[Jerry]

Mad Max, right, like when he and other Democrats opposed any reforms to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in the early 2000s.

[Episiarch]

and then the GOP is going to campaign against the Dems for voting for the bailout

I don't know, Tom. The GOP seems pretty desperate to be "doing something" here.

[Jerry]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are rooting for partisan gridlock in the election year. They want to block legislation that would strengthen regulation by giving the Treasury Department authority over the two companies, the biggest buyers of U.S. mortgages.

Democrats are resisting the House Financial Services Committee's plan to give Treasury oversight of new business, capital standards, and other operations at the two government- chartered companies.

The proposal would undermine the companies' mission of expanding homeownership, said Representative Barney Frank, the panel's top Democrat.

[Mad Max]

Jerry, I specifically said "to the extent his Democrap affiliation permits."

[joe]

McCain's bill would have weakend, not strengthened, oversight. Shifting responsility from the Fed to the the Treasury might or might not have been a good idea on its own merits, but it's neither here nor there.

Particularly given that the Treasury Department at the time was, as an executive department (as opposed to the quasi-indepent Fed, that is deliberately shielded from politics) being run by people with significantly less interest in checking the excesses of the financial markets than the green eyeshade-types at the Fed.

[EJM]

FP's "Passport" has several brief posts concerning today's hearings; perhaps the most notable, so far, is about Sen. Jim Bunning's statement.

[boston]

http://www.telegram.com/article/20080923/NEWS/809230678/1116/NEWSREWIND

a little more context

[P Brooks]

Hank should take a few billion from his trillion dollar line of credit and have marble hammer-and-sickle megaliths erected atop the branches of the Federal Reserve Bank.

[J sub D]

"I think we have to recognize the reality that we don't have a choice now of debating whether this is a good or a bad thing."

Sometomes I kinda like Barney Frank. Then he goes and say some cosmically stupid shit like this.

[matth]

Barney's absolutely right. There is no debate. It's BAD, BAD, BAD...

Or did I take his statement out of context?

[johnl]

Nothing good happens between making a mistake and correcting it. The housing bubble was Greenspan's effort to postpone the correction of the tech bubble. But he just made things worse, and this bailout will make things worse still.

[Kasimir Alexeyovich]

Barney Fag.