Charles Krauthammer wants to blame the financial crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act for forcing Freddie and Fannie to issue lots of minority, low-income, and distressed neighborhood sub-prime loans. That’s bunk! It was private lenders, not Fannie and Freddie that issued nearly all of the subprime mortgages and triggered the crisis. And they were not subject to the CRA at all!
How Did This Happen: Action
According to Media Matters, Fox News’s Brit Hume and Bret Baier tried to blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the crisis, claiming on 9/24/08 that the mortgage giants were heavily involved in sub-prime lending “years ago,” seemingly implying that it was back in 2003. According to Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, “Fannie and Freddie got into subprime junk and helped fuel the housing bubble, but they were trailing the irrational exuberance of the private sector. They lost market share in the years 2002-2007, as the volume of private issue mortgage backed securities exploded.” Laying blame at their feet only diverts attention from those primarily responsible for the mortgage crisis: private lenders.
