About
Frank Salvato
Frank Salvato is the Executive Director and Director of
Terrorism Research for
BasicsProject.org a non-profit,
non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and education initiative. His
writing has been recognized by the US House International
Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict
Prevention. His organization partnered in producing the original
national symposium series addressing the root causes of radical
Islamist terrorism. He serves as the managing editor for The New
Media Journal. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor
on FOX News Channel and is a regular guest on talk radio
including on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent
Radio Network and on The Captain's America Radio Show catering
to the US Armed Forces around the world. His opinion-editorials
have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The
Washington Times & Human Events and are syndicated nationally.
He is occasionally quoted in The Federalist. Mr. Salvato is
available for public speaking engagements.
Let’s Blame Barney Frank,
Chris Dodd & Bill Clinton
September
26, 2008
Now I know how Elvis Presley felt when he shot his television!
Watching Barney Frank (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) pontificate about
how they are going to save the country in it’s time of financial
crisis made me nauseous. How is it that these two charlatans can
feign concern when they are among the principals responsible for
getting the taxpayers into this mess?
By now even the most intellectually stunted among us understands
that the first casualty of politics is honesty. No matter how
superficial or how serious the matter, inside the beltway spin
doctors take the facts, carve out anything that points to their
client’s guilt or responsibility in any given matter and then figure
out how to package it so they can level a charge of irresponsibility
and ineptitude at their opponents or opposing colleagues. Kool-Aid
drinking political sycophants glom on to these talking points and
suddenly the innocent are the guilty and the inept and responsible
are pointing fingers of blame.
There are several facts that we must not allow the spin doctors, the
mainstream media and the guilty to rearrange:
1) Ever since George W. Bush came to power in 2000 he, along with
Sen. John McCain, have been spotlighting the need for a reform of
the laws that govern SEC and Wall Street oversight. Their insistence
on oversight reform of our financial institutions and markets has
been consistent, loud and ignored.
2) The current financial quagmire in which our nation is firmly
planted started, arguably, when
Bill Clinton, came up with his “National
Homeownership Strategy.” This financial scheme, most likely
geared toward bolstering Bubba’s legacy as a man who “cared about
the little people,” promoted insanely low down payments and coerced
lenders into giving mortgage loans to first-time buyers with
unstable financing and incomes.
3) Barney Frank (D-MA), as Chairman of the House Financial Services
Committee and
Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing &
Urban Affairs Committee had ample knowledge of President Bush’s and
Senator McCain’s concerns about the need for oversight reform for
the financial markets, yet they chose to play the roles of
obstructers instead of reformers. They had the power all along to
effect reforms for the financial oversight process and they did
nothing.
Now, as we approach the presidential election of 2008 we witness two
Democrat political opportunists trying feverishly to rewrite the
history of their culpability with regard to the current financial
crisis so as to hang the blame on the Bush Administration and the
campaign of John McCain. Truth be told, as dishonest as the
mainstream media is these days they may just get away with it.
I don’t like the fact that the financial remedy for bad business
practices on Wall Street comes with a bill to the taxpayers of over
$700 billion dollars. While I understand the ramifications of
allowing AIG and other greed merchants of Wall Street to fail, it
seems to me that the real way to alleviate the liquidity problem of
the financial sector would be to afford the $700 billion of taxpayer
monies to the taxpayers who need to address their unqualified
loans. This way they could pay off or pay down the “bad paper”
offered by the Wall Street greed merchants, thus, loosening up
capital with which they might operate.
Really, it’s a simple thought; if the federal government is going to
give money to anyone give it to the people who earned it
so they can pay their bills. Wouldn’t this alleviate the problem?
As for
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd...this is not the kind of “change” we
need in Washington DC.
