Sunday, January 8, 2012

Democrats have selective memory

By Henry Lamb

Democrats like to say: "The worst thing we could do is to go back to the very same policies that created this mess in the first place." They are absolutely correct; we do not ever want to see again the policies that created the current economic mess. But we will, if Obama is re-elected.

Democrats want their audiences to believe that "...the very same policies," are those practiced by the Bush administration. Their hindsight stops with the 2000 election.

The real cause of our current economic dilemma began way back in 1977 with the Community Reinvestment Act, a law prohibiting financial institutions from "redlining." Until then, it was fairly common for banks to decide where they would invest their depositors' money. It was common for banks to draw a red line on a map around slum areas the bankers believed to be too risky to invest their customer's money. The law was tweaked a little in 1989, and again in 1992, but when Bill Clinton claimed the White House, he bought into the idea that society functioned best when managed by the government — especially by his government.

Within six months of his inauguration in 1993, he created by Executive Order the President's Council on Sustainable Development, expressly for the purpose of implementing Agenda 21. Note particularly this Objective from Chapter 7:

    7.8. The objective is to achieve adequate shelter for rapidly growing populations and for the currently deprived urban and rural poor through an enabling approach to shelter development and improvement that is environmentally sound.
Here is just one of ten specific actions recommended to meet the objective:
    (c) All countries should, as appropriate, support the shelter efforts of the urban and rural poor, the unemployed and the no-income group by adopting and/or adapting existing codes and regulations, to facilitate their access to land, finance and low-cost building materials and by actively promoting the regularization and upgrading of informal settlements and urban slums as an expedient measure and pragmatic solution to the urban shelter deficit;
What better way to achieve this objective than to force local banks to make mortgage loans to "...the unemployed and the no-income group," which is essentially what the 1997 revisions to the Community Reinvestment Act did. To sweeten the deal for banks, — and make matters worse for the economy — the Democrat-led Congress required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee these loans. With these guarantees, bankers could bundle these mortgages and resell them as government-guaranteed securities.

Democrats routinely denounce the "greedy bankers on Wall Street" for doing exactly what the Democrat-led Congress made it possible for them to do.

No, we certainly don't want to go back to the policies that got us into this mess. The only way to avoid it is to know exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. It was not the Bush administration. In fact, Bush tried diligently to tighten the regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the Democrat-led Congress stopped him. In fact, in 2005, Barney Frank, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, said that there was no housing bubble, and that he would continue pushing home ownership through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Don't let Democrats blame the Republicans, or the Bush administration for the current economic mess. The problem was caused by the social engineering propensity of the Democrats, and using the force of law to intervene in a free market to force banks and other institutions to conduct business the way the Democrats think business should be conducted.

We have looked at only one small section of Agenda 21 to see how this U.N. document influenced Democrats to implement policies that have now caused enormous financial loss to thousands of people. The remainder of Agenda 21 addresses virtually every facet of human life. The recommendations contained in the document are said to be "voluntary" with no impact on American law. Agenda 21 policies are voluntary — until Congress writes the recommendation into law, or until a local County Commission adopts a Comprehensive Land Use Plan that incorporates the so-called "voluntary" policies.

Learn what you can about Confronting Agenda 21, and help stop its implementation in America.

Renew America