Last week, Senators McCain, Shelby, and Gregg introduced an amendment to the Democrats' phony financial "reform" bill which would have actually reformed the culprits at the very heart of the financial meltdown--namely, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, the Washington Post reports that while the Senate should hold a vote on the amendment any day now, it is unlikely to pass.
Meanwhile, ABC news reports that Fannie and Freddie continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars from their unlimited government credit line.
Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider, on Monday asked the government for an additional $8.4 billion after the company lost $13.1 billion in the first quarter.If the McCain-Shelby-Gregg amendment does indeed fail, it will be impossible to take Democrats seriously when they claim they are fighting the big banks to fix a broken financial system. In July of 2008, the New York Times reported Fannie and Freddie were the biggest players of them all. Before the big crash, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed more than half of all mortgages issued in the United States.
Including the latest request, Fannie Mae will have received more than $84.6 billion from the government, and the firm said it saw no end in sight to federal assistance.
The announcement comes less than a week after smaller mortgage finance company Freddie Mac, said it would need $10.6 billion in government funds after losing $8 billion in the first quarter.
Moreover, it is worth remembering that the author of this legislation, Senator Dodd, was consistently the top recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie during the past two decades. And who was number two on the list? A young and charismatic senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.
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