Minorities Root of Mortgage Collapse? Blame Bush

That crashing sound you heard in the middle of the night was the good Professor Blanchard going off the rails again. He begins with a reasonable bemoaning of our economic peril and the absence of trust. He rightly cites as an example the greed of Bernard Madoff and the negligence of President Bush and his federal watchdogs.

But then Blanchard sails right past that real problem and decides to blame those darn minorities and their enablers in the Democratic Party and the liberal press for originating the subprime lending crisis.

Feel free to review why minority lenders and the Community Reinvestment Act are not to blame. That should be enough to put your attention back on the real problem: deregulation, free-market fundamentalism, and gambling on Wall Street. As Bernard Madoff proves, one bad rich guy can do much more damage to your life savings and the economy as a whole than a couple dozen lazy Mexican families (though the Mexican fellas I see are all busting their humps building our houses and roads for us).

But just in case you can't resist dabbling in the Rush-Limbaugh infused multiculturalismophobia that drives victims to blame all of the country's woes on poor non-white people, try out this argument from a raging anti-immigrationist who pins the blame for minority subprime lending on the political machinations of Geroge W. Bush and Karl Rove:

And the primary political goal of President George W. Bush's political strategist: to bring Hispanics into the Republican Party.

As you'll recall, Rove's best-known tactic to appeal to Latino voters was repeatedly pushing "comprehensive immigration reform" (i.e., an amnesty for illegal immigrants).

Rove, though, had other arrows in his quiver. One was a plan to turn Hispanics into Republicans by providing them with loose credit so they could become homeowners.

... As part of this plan, George W. Bush made several speeches rallying enthusiasm for his October 15, 2002 White House Conference on Increasing Minority Homeownership. For instance, there was his classic Bushian effort on June 18, 2002:

"The goal is, everybody who wants to own a home has got a shot at doing so. The problem is we have what we call a homeownership gap in America. Three-quarters of Anglos own their homes, and yet less than 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanics own homes. … So I've set this goal for the country. We want 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010—million more minority homeowners by 2010. (Applause.) … "

...Bush and Rove didn't have a plan for helping minorities earn more. Instead, they had a plan for helping minorities borrow more.

Bush went on in his June 18th speech:

"Well, probably the single barrier to first-time homeownership is high down payments. "

... CNN reported after Bush's June 17 speech at the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta:

"Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the federal Home Loan Banks—the government-sponsored corporations that handle home mortgages—will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than $440 billion, Bush said."

[Steve Sailer, "Karl Rove—Architect of the Minority Mortgage Meltdown," VDare.com, 2008.09.28]

I by no means endorse this foul-tasting stuff, this raving anti-immigrant baloney. My point is simply that even scaping that bogus goat doesn't clear the Republicans.

Y'all have fun blaming minorities for your problems. It doesn't seem very Sarah Palin/Main Street/Real America to blame the small-potatoes working man for the economic mess.... but that's exactly what the rich white guys behind the Wall Street curtain want you to do.