Rep. Barney Frank is Making Sense on Fannie and Freddie - Liberal Sestak Still All Alone on Mortgage Bailouts
For Immediate Release—August 18, 2010
Contact: Nachama Soloveichik • Communications Director • 484.809.7994 • 646.528.1029
Contact: Kristin Anderson • Deputy Communications Director • 484.809.7994 • 612.280.5196
Contact: Tim Kelly • Press Secretary • 484.809.7994
Allentown, PA – U.S. Senate candidate and former small business owner Pat Toomey praised Democratic Rep. Barney Frank for calling for the abolition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for acknowledging that it should not be government policy to push everyone into homeownership.
In an interview with Fox News Business, the powerful Rep. Barney Frank called for an end to the hybrid private-public mechanism that has kept Fannie and Freddie on life support, (Reuters, 08/18/10).
Rep. Frank said: “There were people in this society who for economic and, frankly, social reasons can't and shouldn't be homeowners. I think we should, particularly, stop this assumption that you put everybody into homeownership. Public policy has been too much to try to push people into homeownership.”
Unfortunately for Pennsylvania taxpayers, Congressman Joe Sestak disagrees and thinks taxpayers should be forced to subsidize and bail out other people’s mortgages—the very idea that got the country into the financial mess in the first place. Joe Sestak, not only voted to bail out Fannie and Freddie, he thinks hardworking homeowners should be bailing out other people’s mortgages.
- Sestak voted to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (RC #519, 07/23/08).
- Sestak voted against a measure that would create new portfolio guidelines for Fannie and Freddie (RC #383, 05/17/07).
- Sestak voted for an amendment that limited the authority of Fannie and Freddie’s new regulator—the Federal Housing Finance Agency—so that it would not have oversight of the enterprises’ portfolio risk to the overall U.S. economy. (RC #394, 03/22/07)
And most glaringly, Sestak has written a bill called The Home Ownership Vesting Plan of 2009 that would force hardworking taxpayers who struggle to pay their own mortgages to bail out other people’s mortgages. Currently, Joe Sestak’s bill has exactly zero cosponsors for his bill.
“This comes down to basic fairness,” Toomey Communications Director Nachama Soloveichik said. “It is unfair to force hard working taxpayers to bail out Fannie & Freddie, Wall Street, or the car companies, like Congressman Sestak has repeatedly voted to have them do. Pat Toomey understands that most people across Pennsylvania work hard to provide for their families and pay their mortgages on time, and they should not be forced to shoulder the price tag for other people’s mistakes. If you want to see how extreme Congressman Sestak is on this issue, just look at how many other members of Congress support his mortgage bailout bill has – zero.”
