The Frank-Obama Rescue Plan: Easier Money To the Rescue!
Do you remember the one about how lending too much money to too many people helped cause the financial crisis? You know, the one about how, in the words of Candidate Obama, "Lenders tricked people into buying homes they couldn't afford and some folks knew they couldn't afford them and bought them anyway"?
Well things are different now. The real problem, says Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is that banks didn't give out enough cash under President Bush. But not to worry:
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said President Barack Obama will require banks receiving government aid to lend more to businesses and consumers, saying the Bush administration "made a mistake" by not setting stricter rules for institutions getting funds from the $700 billion financial-rescue package.
"I think you're going to see the Obama administration, having learned from that, push for much more lending," Frank said today on ABC's This Week. "There are going to be some real rules in there."
Indeed, Obama pledged in his weekly radio address to "lower mortgage costs" as part of a plan to get credit and money out into the economy.
Once again, let's review: We got into this mess because of what Obama castigated as "an era of easy money, in which we were allowed and even encouraged to spend without limits; to borrow instead of save." And we'll get out it precisely by…spending and borrowing more, especially on overvalued property.