President Bush insisted existing laws were adequate for dealing with problems in the mortgage lending market and said firmly that any help that was offered should be to home buyers facing potential foreclosure rather than to lenders. “I think we ought to crack down on predatory lending. I don’t think we need new law, we ought to enforce the law on the books. And then I think we ought to let the market work.” Reality is a totally different matter.
Predatory lending enforcement against Household International and Ameriquest came from the states, not from the federal government. Bush, on the other hand, signed a new bankruptcy bill into law. Bush also approved legislation which makes it harder to file class action suits. Then Bush approved postal service reform, part of which enables predatory lenders to escape any audit trail if the lenders fail to send statements to customers. During Bush’s tenure the Office of the Comptroller, convicted crony Bob Ney, and others fought to overturn state-level anti-predatory lending laws.
Analysts who monitor the situation daily insist Bush and his cabinet knew of pending problems as the Bush administration tried to “boost” the U.S. economy. Legislation set the stage. Businesses benefitted while consumers suffer. Bush is right on one issue as he said “I think we ought to crack down on predatory lending.” Unfortunately he has failed to do so even when the warning signs were clear. Bush then said “I don’t think we need new law, we ought to enforce the law on the books” – which is laughable when one considers what he signed into law.
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This news articles was published on December 4, 2007:
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s 2005 decision that barred the New York attorney general’s office from subpoenaing documents and instituting enforcement actions against national banks as part of an investigation into lending practices.