NEW YORK - House Republican leaders demanded Tuesday that embattled Rep. Charles Rangel be removed from his post as chairman of a tax-writing committee while an ethics panel reviews his personal finances.

The GOP's latest thrust against Rangel came as his advisers acknowledged he will pay back federal, state, and city taxes for unreported rent collected on a vacation home. The episode is particuarly embarassing for a legislator with oversight of the nation's tax code, and one who has been in Congress for nearly four decades.

Rangel's lawyer has already acknowledged he had not reported some $75,000 in rental income on the property over two decades, and that for more than a decade he paid no interest on his mortgage for the property. His lawyer insists that any tax mistakes were minor and accidental.

The congressman will soon file amended tax returns paying "modest" back taxes owed for the last several years, said Davis. Initially, the lawyer said the amount could be thousands of dollars in each category but hours later backed off those figures, saying it was unclear what the amounts of taxes owed would be.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_go_co/rangel_vacation_villa_3

And he's chairman of a tax writing committee???

The House bill wasn't to entirely privitize FNMA and FHLMC (that was the Administration position), it was to ADD oversight and increase the funding requirements. It would have (likely) slowed the growth of FNMA and FHLMC and by restricting (directly or indirectly through greater capital requirements) the amount of RMBS FNMA and FHLMC could issue.

Everything leads to failure and you're being forced to pay for it. Doesn't really matter who you want to blame for that.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2008/9/10/barney-franks-fannie-and-freddie-muddle.html

And, this compendium of several years' worth of warnings about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the Wall Street Journal. All along, the Journal editors were right. They had some Republican support, but not enough. The White House pursued a lot of the recommendations, but not enough. But clearly, beyond any doubt, the true-believer conservatives have correctly favored the massive overhaul, reduction and eventual elimination of the GSE's

And throughout, the worst ennablers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the Democratic congressional leadership, led by Barney Frank, and the coterie of Democratic insiders led by Jamie Gorelick, and Obama advisors Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046287/posts

zaleriana - the article claims, correctly, that it was the White House pushing for FNMA/FHLMC privatization, versus the more stringent regulation (and by implication, more cautious lending practices) mandated by the House legislation. You know, the one that Greenspan called "worse than no bill at all"?

I hope this reminds people again of the reckless and partisan positions of Alan Greenspan, that has, as usual from the right-wing, been transformed into economy-saving heroics. Wealth generated through pumped-up lending and the stock values of the lenders isn't really wealth at all if it all turns out to be a sham. I hope the economic "growth" numbers of the past 6-7 years are eventually adjusted to reflect that.

It would not surprise me in the least if the $500 billion bailout of Fannie & Freddie were part of the larger longterm plan of extremist Repuglicans to bankrupt our nation. As we all know, Grover Norquist and his anti-tax lunatics desire to "starve the beast" by denying our government, of We the People, of the funds necessary to carry out its functions. Bush and company have already plunged us into an almost bottomless pit of debt; the Fannie and Freddie bailout is the equivalent of pouring concrete into the hole and sealing us in for good.

Think about that the next time a bridge collapses, or poisoned meat enters the market, or any number of disasters that occurred for lack of federal funding and oversight, and the public screams for government help. Think of it also the next time the Red States stick out their hands for yet more welfare checks from the Blue States.

Accountablity or denie ablity

It all adds up to the worst administration ever.

Disaster hardly says it. When so many bad calls are made it begs the question, Is this a plan? If so who is involved and

what is the purpose of the plan?

One thing for sure we are going to find out sooner or later.

To the president- There is no such thing as a secret unless you are the only one that knows. Sooner or later the blister will pop.

Looks like someone needs to learn their history. (Start with “Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis). Fannie & Freddie operated just fine for many decades…..as a matter of fact, Fannie was created during the Depression and along with Freddie & Ginnie Mae have provided the liquidity needed for immeasurable opportunities to America in real estate, development, construction, and all the related businesses (think contractors, suppliers, Sears, Home Depot, IKEA….the list goes on) If it were not for the Secondary mortgage market created by Fannie & Freddie, the Real Estate picture in America over most of the last 70+ years would have been a lot bleaker.

It wasn’t until the Wall Street fatcats decided to slice, dice, and mutilate the secondary mortgage market did things start to unravel. And like most everything else Wall Street touches, the cancer of deceit & corruption has all but ruined a market mechanism that worked just fine for many years. And we have the sh# for brains Republican philosophy embodied by the likes of Phil Gramm to thank for it.

Elfman is right up to a point. Democrats, Franks and Waters championed Fannie as the lender of last resort for low income borrowers. The need for such a backstop became less evident when the Fed lowered interest rates. The private lenders found they could write liar loans, ARMS, and everything exotic, and Fannie would be their toxic waste dump. It was really too late for the Democrats to do anything without jepordizing the portfolio of existing loans.

The GSE's should have been restricted from taking any new paper, until they provided an audit. In point of fact they were never Government Sponsored Enterprises, and Greenspan said so. This sad tale isn't much different than the Iraq war funding circus. The Democrats accepted a gentlemen's agreement on the matter, and that agreement was never honored, it was never meant to be honored, and since most of these people are lawyers they have no excuse.

Would the whole mess have been worse? No, if you accept the reality that the government never had Fannie and Freddie's back. The Republican bamboozle claims another victim, when will these people ever learn?

Additionally I am willing to bet that an amount equal to about one third of the current budget deficit is being held in offshore banks in the Bahamas, the greatest rippoff of the American taxpayer, through the MIC, black and no-bid contracts, in history.

Like Iran Contra, when the Savings and Loan scandal was a conduit for the illegal funding of the rebels, the destruction of the home mortgage business has put millions of taxpayer dollars into offashore banks, and by extension Republican hands. The Iran Contra investigation was the defining moment, the moment in failure, when the Republican party learned they could steal money from US taxpayers, with no repercussions, and conduct secret wars, and run political slush funds.

The party of Nixon has always sought it moment of retribution, and with each iteration they come a bit closer.