Political Quotes

“I was citing two responsible and thoughtful Republicans, the former chair of the Ways and Means Committee and Mr. McCain's chief budget adviser, plus all of the financial regulators under both Bush administrations who said CRA wasn't the problem. Now, the gentleman didn't say that it was. Some people have said that, because CRA did have some kind of more mandatory position, but it wasn't for those subprime loans. In fact, with regard to the loans the gentleman is legitimately complaining about, it was those of us on the Democratic side who tried to ban them. Beginning in 2004, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), I joined them a little bit later, tried to outlaw those loans. And we were blocked by people who said, No, that's a mistake. In fact, in 2007, when this House, when we became the majority, finally did make illegal many of those loans in a bill, The Wall Street Journal denounced us and said we had created a Sarbanes-Oxley restriction for housing. So I just want to make it clear that there was no direction by any entity of the Federal Government.”