Democrats on path to repeat housing disaster, by Byron York.
"At the hearing, and in others across Capitol Hill, Democratic majorities are pressing hard to expand some of the very policies that led to the reckless home lending that in turn helped lead to the great financial meltdown. If Chairman Barney Frank and his fellow Democrats have their way, we'll do it all again -- and more.
At issue last week was H.R. 1479, the Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. It would expand and strengthen the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which required banks to make loans in low-income areas that many lenders had traditionally shunned."
In short, for the first CRA trainwreck, Congress, via HUD & Fannie Mae, demanded banks make high risk loans (or face the regulators wrath) to people who couldn't afford those loans - all in the name of 'fairness'. $787,000,000,000.00 worth of fairness.
Hey, Congress. I gots your fairness, right here!
York rightly points out that CRA was not entirely to blame, but the philosophy behind CRA did eventually build an over heated financial house of debt which collapsed under its own morally hazardous weight.
Here's a good, step-by-step layman's guide to how that happened.
And now those mental midgets in Congress want to double down on this deja vu, all over again.