The road to this economic hell was paved with the good
intentions of the Carter administration. It seemed like a good
idea to make sure that people who looked like me could get a
mortgage without being discriminated against. Certainly the idea
of home ownership was a dream to my family while we lived in a
vermin-infested tenement in Spanish Harlem. Even if we could
afford to buy we faced the possibility of redlining by banks
which only serviced wealthier neighborhoods. The Community
Reinvestment Act of 1977 forced banks to provide credit,
including home ownership opportunities, to under-served
populations, and commercial loans to small businesses.
My sister worked five jobs to reach that dream but that was
before the Clinton administration enhanced the CRA in 1995 making
it possible to get mortgages you really couldn’t afford. All
the qualifications one had to meet were essentially watered down
and the housing boom was on. But, but…you may say, it’s
the Bush administration that caused the housing crisis. Oh,
really?
Remember those no money down, no income verifications, interest
only mortgages? The message was, “Why rent? You can own a
home now.” Funds were added to buyers’ bank account by
corrupt brokers and developers to defraud lenders. A lot of us
fell for these practices knowing full well that we might not be
able to pay for that balloon mortgage if we lost our job or were
struck with illness. My sister lost her job and home when she was
stricken with leukemia. We nearly lost the home we had purchased
in 1978 when I was laid off in the 1992 recession.
What led to the bubble bursting had nothing to do with good
intentions. It was corruption, greed and fraud and the culprits
behind the scam are still in office and I’m not talking
about the president.
The major villains in this piece are the administrators of Fannie
Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise that was supposed to
guarantee these tenuous mortgages. From 1991 to 1998, Fannie Mae
was headed by James Johnson, a longtime aide to former Democratic
vice president Walter Mondale. Johnson’s successor, Franklin
Raines, had served as budget director to Bill Clinton. Jamie
Gorelick, vice chair of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003, served as
deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.
They paid themselves handsome salaries. Johnson earned
$21-million in just his last year at Fannie Mae. Raines earned
$90-million for five years’ work at Fannie Mae. Gorelick got
$26-million.
Everyone in business knew that Fannie Mae was overextending
itself in mortgage debt but when the Bush administration tried to
regulate it in 2003, Senators like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd
argued against reform but considering that they were getting
contributions from Fannie Mae, this was a no-brainer. In 2005,
John McCain went on the floor of the Senate and warned that we
were headed for a fall if Fannie Mae was not reined in but the
bill he co-sponsored that would have prevented this crisis never
came to a vote.
What we are hearing from Washington are bald-faced lies from
politicians who think we’re all stupid. They’re right
if voters don’t check out the facts for themselves. Just go
to You Tube and check out where Fannie Mae’s biggest
campaign contributions went.
Politicians love to play the class envy game because it works.
All they have to campaign with are slogans that say “Tax
breaks for the Rich,” or “Big Corporations don’t
pay tax,” and the mob shouts out in agreement.
As a kid, I used to sit on my fire escape on 110th Street and
dream of the future. It was during the Cold war and I had this
scary thought. It would just be my luck that when I finally
became rich, the communists would take over and take away all my
money. I’ll probably never be rich but that scenario is not
only scary, it’s become likely.
Déjà Vu in New York
The more I hear comments from my Democrat family and friends
about Barack Obama, the more I get an eerie sense of déjà vu. I’ve
heard these sentiments about “change” before. “How
nice it would be to have a black man in charge,”- only back
in 1989 they were talking about David Dinkins. This year it’s
Barack Obama and New Yorkers are rhapsodizing about his candidacy
just as they did Dinkins’.
In the 1989 race between Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani, Woody Allen
was quoted in the NY Times as saying that the Democrat candidate
was ''the one hope'' for New York City. Giuliani however warned
that Dinkins was not ready to lead. ''He's not a man who can rise
to a tough challenge,'' he said.
In 1991, those words were recalled during the Crown Heights riots
that followed the traffic accident death of a seven-year old
African American child, Gavin Cato. David Dinkins will be forever
known as the mayor that allowed a “pogrom” to occur for
three days during which blacks roamed the streets shouting “Kill
the Jews,” before ordering sufficient police manpower in to
quell it. In all fairness, David Dinkins did initiate some
positive changes but he simply was not tough enough to govern New
York City.
One name that specifically triggers the déjà vu connection
between Dinkins and Barack Obama is Percy Sutton. The former
Manhattan Borough President remains a very influential persona in
New York politics. David Dinkins became the BP in 1985 and both
Sutton and Dinkins have remained close allies and were
instrumental in shaping the new Harlem.
Now it is 2008 and in an interview with NY 1 filmed in May, Percy
Sutton said “I was introduced to him by a friend who was
raising money for him. That friend’s name is Dr. Khalid
al-Mansour, from Texas. He is the principal advisor to one of the
world’s richest men. He told me about Obama.”
The Obama campaign vehemently denies this and Mr. al-Mansour
agrees that his old friend must be mistaken. Perhaps, it’s
his health. After all, he is 88 years old. We are thus left with
the impression that Sutton’s recollection must have been one
of Karl Rove’s Machiavellian maneuvers or he is simply
senile. So Mr. Sutton, Malcolm X’s attorney, former Tuskegee
airman and Harlem savior joins Obama’s former friends under
the bus.
But Obama needn’t have feared this revelation about his
possible connection to al-Mansour who is an advisor to the Saudi
Royal family because this information will make no difference to
those who have placed their allegiance to Obama.
When Giuliani ran a 1989 campaign ad charging that Dinkins had
failed to file tax returns for four years, he was pilloried for
running a negative ad and dredging up a “tired issue.”
Dinkins himself said, “I haven’t committed a crime.
What I did was fail to comply with the law.”
Likewise it will make no difference to liberals like Woody Allen
who said recently, “It would be a disgrace and humiliation
if Barack Obama does not win.”
To a committed ideologue issues are not important; feelings are
much more important than intellectual deep thought. Consider the
aftermath of Katrina when we heard over and over “It took
Fema four days to get water to the coliseum without anyone
considering that it was the Mayor’s and Governor’s
responsibility not Washington to carry out that task. Just as it
is Congress’ job to pass legislation and a candidate who
claims that he can is being deceptive.
But this is a Democratic city that keeps electing representatives
without pondering how those who started their government careers
with modest means somehow end up millionaires with investments in
the Dominican Republic that they fail to report to the IRS.
This election is not about race or ideology, my fellow New
Yorkers. It’s about survival. Time to wake up.