McCain Throws Aside Free Market Rhetoric, Embraces Government Bailout Of Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac

Think Progress
Monday, Sept 8, 2008

In March, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took a hard line against government economic intervention, saying that it is “not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

In what may be the “largest financial bailout” in U.S. history, the federal government is now set to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises that “own or guarantee almost half of the country’s $12 trillion in outstanding home mortgage debt.”

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Despite McCain’s supposed opposition to bailing out “those who act irresponsibly,” Senior Policy Adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin has issued a statement supporting the bailout:

John McCain supports the steps needed to keep the financial troubles at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from further squeezing American families and endorses the idea that management and shareholders should not benefit from government backing. While details are not yet available, the actions taken today are consistent with those objectives. Fannie and Freddie have been the poster children for a lack of transparency and accountability, and remind us of the needed reforms to financial markets in general.

Organizations such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are too important to allow to fail. McCain and the Bush administration are willing to throw away their hard-line ideologies when it comes to powerful corporations, but not when it comes to struggling homeowners who also need government intervention. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellow David Abromowitz noted:

There are many good reasons, of course, to act to avert a [financial corporation’s] bankruptcy. … But the reasons are no less compelling when the devastation hits individual Americans directly—home by home, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood—instead of mainly in the boardroom circles in which F. Scott Fitzgerald traveled, and which have changed so little since the Roaring Twenties.

This is now the second major government bailout McCain has backed this year. In March, he supported the Federal Reserve’s $30 billion credit line to finance the takeover of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan.

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8 Responses to “McCain Throws Aside Free Market Rhetoric, Embraces Government Bailout Of Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac”

1. RS Says:
   September 8th, 2008 at 1:53 pm

   Why don’t they use the bailout money to payoff the peoples morgages who are suffering the most. That money is just going to go to top executives & interest groups & nothings really going to change, the middle class will just be more in debt…

2. dondon Says:
   September 8th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

   Nice pile of shyt Bush is leaving on the desk of the next President!!!!

3. Stephen Says:
   September 8th, 2008 at 3:30 pm

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4. Stephen Says:
   September 8th, 2008 at 3:30 pm

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5. mark Says:
   September 8th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

   this country is nazi germany waiting to happen. pretty soon we’ll be exterminating every country imaginable because they are terrorist scum who are hell bent on tearing down democracy

6. NoBozos Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 6:23 am

   Anyone out there doubt McCain is every bit as idiotic and embecilic as GW? He is the Miss South Carolina of presidential candidates. And if you put him in office, he will repay you by putting you in the landfill.

7. Chris Bieber Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 8:17 am

   perpetual war for perpetual peace
   perpetual indebtedness for perpetual control
   perpetual free market rhetoric for perpetual primary victories
   perpetual printing press “dollars” for perpetual 2-book bookkeeping
   perpetual obliviousness for perpetual American Idol

   it will soon be really “perpetual”……..

8. TimInSouthDakota Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:15 am

   WAR IS PEACE
   FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

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   He talks about how computers are giving off toxic gas that gets into your body and your home. It’s some real fucked up shit. Check it out.