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Monday, September 15, 2008

Once Lehman Brothers Goes Under, Who Will Finance the Politicians?

Well, there will always be Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy congressional votes and executive branch indulgences. Let's see here, who has the second highest total of political contributions from these two mortgage giants?

Barack Obama.

Who's got a pair of former Fannie Mae CEOs high up on his campaign staff?

Barack Obama.
“You look at Obama’s economic advisers, the guys he has counted on from day one and who have raised him a ton — and I mean a ton — of money: Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of them are waist to neck deep in the mortgage debacle.”

Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae, with Raines taking over from Johnson. Both are key political and economic advisers to Obama.
Now that's change you can believe in.

Or not.

Update: Jennifer Rubin at Contentions has more.
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:20 AM

    I don't know what's sadder about these numbers - that it looks like practically the entire House and Senate are "on the take" from these guys, or that so many of them evidently sell so cheaply. Even the top takers are taking less than $150,000, and most of them are evidently willing to be at least slightly bought for a couple of thousand. Sure, that sounds like a lot to *me*, but even at the high end it's only enough to pay a couple of campaign staffers for a year. It's hardly sell-out-the-country-and-flee-to-Brazil money.

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  2. K T Cat11:30 AM

    The more the government gets involved in the economy, the more businesses will require lobbyists and political donations. Make no mistake, the Republicans are just as infested with this stuff.

    Maybe we should admit that it is a natural course for nature to take and if we don't like so much of it, we should shrink the size of government.

    Just a wild thought...

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  3. B-Daddy11:03 PM

    This discussion proves why reform and smaller government go hand in glove. With fewer goodies to give out there are fewer opportunities for corruption. Steve Forbes said it best when he ran for President in the 90s, discussing why campaign finance "reform" never works. When you have an ant problem in the kitchen, you can keep setting traps and trying to seal the doors, but sooner or later you're going to have to remove the cake from under the sink.

    ReplyDelete