• Political pressure led to the erosion of responsible lending practices: In the early 1990s, Fannie and Freddie began to come under considerable political pressure to lower their underwriting standards, particularly on the size of down payments and the credit quality of borrowers. (p.6)
• Lower down payments led to housing prices that outpaced income growth: Once government-sponsored efforts to decrease down payments spread to the wider market, home prices became increasingly untethered from any kind of demand limited by borrowers’ ability to pay.  Instead, borrowers could just make smaller down payments and take on higher debt, allowing home prices to continue their unrestrained rise.  Some statistics help illustrate how this occurred.  Between 2001 and 2006, median home prices increased by an inflation-adjusted 50 percent, yet at the same time Americans’ income failed to keep up.  (p. 11)
• Members of an “affordable housing” coalition shared profits with political allies to help legitimize their business practices: Fannie Mae created and used The Fannie Mae Foundation to spread millions of dollars around to politically-connected organizations like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.  It also hired well-known academics to give an aura of academic rigor to policy positions favorable to Fannie Mae.  One paper coauthored by now-Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag, concluded that the chance was minimal that the GSEs were not holding sufficient capital to cover their losses in the event of a severe economic shock.  The authors suggested that “the risk to the government from a potential default on GSE debt is effectively zero,” and that “the expected cost to the government of providing an explicit government guarantee on $1 trillion in GSE debt is just $2 million.” (p.7)
• The Government Sponsored Enterprises led the way into the housing crisis: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were leaders in risky mortgage lending.  According to an analysis presented to the Committee, between 2002 and 2007, Fannie and Freddie purchased $1.9 trillion of mortgages made to borrowers with credit scores below 660, one of the definitions of “subprime” used by federal banking regulators. This represents over 54% of all such mortgages purchased during those years. (p.24)

Democrats, I’m sure, will call the report a partisan hatchet job and blame the housing market meltdown entirely on greed and mismanagement on Wall Street… Greed and mismanagement undoubtedly played a part but, that does not excuse government policy makers from culpability. The policy and regulatory decisions made by the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve played principle roll in laying foundation upon which this house of cards built. They have to be called to account for their actions along with Wall Street.

Sarah Palin has begun to get on the nerves of Republican senators who say the former GOP vice presidential nominee is taking her own White House aspirations entirely too seriously.

But those same senators may have their eye on a 2012 White House run or be friends with senators with presidential ambitions. And Palin, who does not have a lot of Washington connections, energized the party’s grass roots in 2008 while bucking the D.C. establishment, leaving much of the party’s elite grumbling about her appeal to the conservative base.

Several GOP senators offered searing criticism of the Alaska governor when asked in recent interviews whether she could pose a credible challenge to President Obama in 2012.

“She has to hunker down and govern and show she’s not a joke,” said a GOP lawmaker who represents one of the southern battlegrounds of the 2012 election.

Palin re-emerged in the national political spotlight this week, attending fundraisers in New York and sitting down for an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity.

Heh… I’m glad someone in the Republican Party is taking 2012 seriously. It’s shame those same GOP senators aren’t getting irritated over and speaking out against Barack Obama’s economic policies.

Here’s Gov. Palin’s interview with Sean Hannity:

1) Do you think the GOP will gain or lose seats in the House in 2010?

They’ll pick up a handful of seats.

2) Do you think the GOP will gain or lose seats in the Senate in 2010?

Ditto above… They’ll pick a seat or two.

3) Colin Powell said the following, “Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.” Do you agree?

Yes and no… On the first point no one likes paying taxes but we do it willingly for the most part. On the second point I think a great many Americans want it, or think they can have it, both ways… they want more government services, lower taxes and less regulation and as long as someone else is paying the bill they’re happy. But when the bill comes due and it has their name on it as just happened in California they scream bloody murder and blame everyone but themselves.

4) Whose views do you think are more representative of your personal opinion: David Frum, Meghan McCain, John McCain, & Colin Powell or Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Tom Coburn, & Newt Gingrich?

Overall, I agree with Limbaugh, Levin, Coburn and Gingrich more often than I do either of the either of the McCains, Frum or Powell. That said I do agree with Cassandra… many of the folks I agree with (and many I disagree with) are needlessly snotty and divisive.

5) Do you support the NRSC’s decision to endorse Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican primary?

No, the NRSC should keep it’s nose out of the primarys.

6) Do you think Barack Obama was born in Hawaii or elsewhere?

Hasn’t this bit of silliness been settled? Absent proof otherwise he’s a citizen.

7) Do you think that Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed?

Yes, she’ll face some moderately tough questioning from Republicans during her confirmation hearing but she’ll be confirmed.

While President Obama may believe the stars are aligned for major health reform this year it is far from certain whether Congress will pass a bill that works. The groups that are most likely to unravel this effort are not the president’s opponents, but his allies. Nothing will rally ordinary Americans against the president’s plan more than his allies arguing too forcefully for a system run by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington – what we call the “public option” in the Obama plan.

It should come as no surprise that this ideologically rigid position is coming under fire. As the Washington Post recently wrote, “the fixation on a public plan is bizarre and counterproductive … It is entirely possible to imagine effective health-care reform – changes that would expand coverage and help control costs – without a public option.”

We agree. We have introduced a comprehensive health care reform bill, the Patients’ Choice Act that, we believe, will bring us far closer to the goal of universal coverage than the Obama plan. Our bill, in specific legislative language, does the following:

• Puts affordable coverage and choice within reach of all Americans.
• Prevents cherry picking by guaranteeing access to coverage.
• Strengthens the health care safety net.

I’m not going to try and analyze the Republican plan here, Peter Ferrara at the American Spectator and Rick Moran have already done a better job than I could anyway.

Suffices to say there isn’t anything new or revolutionary in the Republican plan… It borrows heavily from the plan offered by John McCain during the campaign and from ideas offered the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation over the years.

Anyway the plan is pretty comprehensive and unlike the Democrats proposals it puts consumers in change. Regardless of how good or bad the Republican plan is It’ll never get a fair review in congress. Democrats will be just as dismissive of it as they were of the GOP’s alternative budget proposal.

Related

• The GOP’s Health-Care Alternative – Wall Street Journal
• GOP Health Care Plan Aims For Universal Health Care In The Private Market – CBS News
• GOP offers preemptive health plan – Politico

It was a great speech…  Greg Hengler has the whole 30-minute address at Townhall.com but this 10-minute clip should give you a good taste:

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mr. Steele, but I have to admit I’ve been having second thoughts about him as RNC chairman… He’s made more than a few stumbles, but this speech highlights why I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In some respects he has thankless job trying to resuscitate the Republican Party Nationally while at the same time refereeing squabbles by between party factions.

Essentially Steele is caught between two factions the first rightly points out that Republicans lost in both of 2006 and 2008 was because the GOP lost its way. The party of limited government and fiscal responsibility traded in its traditional conservative principles for a some sort of political expedient squishy “republicanism” and went on a wild spending spree while descending into corruption.

At the same time, there is a second camp that rightly point out that some places simply won’t elect conservatives any more.

They’re both right, the problem for the second camp is that if the Republican Party cannot clearly distinguish itself from the Democratic Party, why even have a Republican Party? The simple truth is we have to put aside our differences and rally around the things that unite us, limited government, fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense, and vibrant free markets, and draw clear distinctions between us and the Democrats.

As Michael Steele said the honeymoon is over it’s time to confront President Obama and Democrats in Congress head on.

Related

• RNC shocker: Steele delivers good speech – Hot Air
• Steele Looks Forward; Tries to Quiet Challenges – RedState

4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year.

I doubt it. In the hastily penned postmortems of campaign ’08, much of the blame for McCain’s loss seems to have fallen at the feet of the candidate and his advisers, who (so the narrative goes) made a series of lousy strategic decisions that wound up costing the Arizona senator the White House. There’s little question that some of the choices McCain and his team made — the most obvious being the impulsive decision to suspend his campaign and try to broker a deal on the financial rescue bill, only to see his efforts blow up in his face — did not help. But a look at this year’s political atmospherics suggests that the environment was so badly poisoned that no Republican — not Mitt Romney, not Mike Huckabee, not even the potential future GOP savior, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — could have beaten Obama on Nov. 4.

Why not? Three words (and a middle initial): President George W. Bush.

In the national exit poll, more than seven in 10 voters said that they disapproved of the job Bush was doing; not surprisingly, Obama resoundingly won that group, 67 percent to 31 percent. But here’s an even more stunning fact: While 7 percent of the exit-poll sample strongly approved of the job Bush was doing, a whopping 51 percent strongly disapproved. Obama won those strong disapprovers 82 percent to 16 percent. And Bush’s approval numbers looked grim for the GOP even before the September financial meltdown.

Just one in five voters in the national exit polls said that the country was “generally going in the right direction.” McCain won that group 71 percent to Obama’s 27 percent. But among the 75 percent of voters who said that the country was “seriously off on the wrong track,” Obama had a thumping 26-point edge.

Those numbers speak to the damage that eight years of the Bush administration have done to the Republican brand. It’s a burden that any candidate running for president with an “R” after his — or her — name would have had to drag around the country.

5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin.

No subject is more likely to break up a dinner party early than the Alaska governor McCain chose as his running mate. Everyone not only has an opinion about her qualifications (or lack thereof) but also feels it necessary to share those opinions with anyone within shouting range.

Love her or loathe her, the data appear somewhere close to conclusive that Palin did little to help — and, in fact, did some to hurt — McCain’s attempts to reach out to independents and Democrats. But just because Palin doesn’t appear to have helped McCain move to the middle doesn’t mean that picking her was the wrong move.

Remember where McCain found himself this past summer. He had won the Republican nomination, but the GOP base clearly felt little buy-in into his campaign. A slew of national polls reflected that energy gap, with Democrats revved up about the election and their candidate and Republicans somewhere between tepid and glum.

Enter Palin, who was embraced with a bear hug by the party’s conservative base. All of a sudden, cultural conservatives were thrilled at the chance to put “one of their own” in the White House. In fact, of the 60 percent of voters who told exit pollsters that McCain’s choice of Palin was a “factor” in their final decision, the Arizona senator won 56 percent to 43 percent.

For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It’s hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain — even to the relatively limited extent that they did — without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain’s loss could have been far worse.

I agree with Cillizza on both points.

1) Republicans had no chance in this election… Over the last decade they’ve abandoned traditional conservative principles in favor of some sort of squishy, centrist/populist quasi conservative “Republicanism” that lead to out of controlled spending and bad policy ideas like campaign finance reform, no child left behind, and amnesty for illegal aliens.

If Republicans expect to have any chance in the 2010 mid-terms or in 2012 Presidential election they need rediscover traditional conservative principles. Defining those principles isn’t a simple task but for me they start with a fundamental unwavering belief that, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

It used to be that Republicans embodied those principles by fighting for fiscal responsibility, limited government, private property rights, and a strong national defense. I’m not sure how or when the Republican party lost its way what I do know is they’ve lost lost two straight elections because they’ve alienated both their conservative base and independent voters.

2) Sarah Palin may not have helped McCain with independent voters she did energize the conservative base of the Republican party… Without her on ticket I think it’s a safe bet that Barack Obama’s margin of victory would have been larger.

Personally, I think some of Palin’s problems with independent voters sterm from the McCain campaigns management of her. They would have been better served by having her do a handful of interviews on talk radio and with local media outlets in swing states to tell her story directly to voters before having her do national media interviews with Charlie Gibson and Kattie Couric.

The first suite due to be filed in filed in the District of Columbia seeks to strike down the soft-money ban that is the central tenet of the McCain-Feingold Act – “soft money” is largely unrestricted contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions.

The second suit due to be filed in a Louisiana federal court seeks to strike down the limits on coordination between parties and their candidates.

GOP to file suit to undo McCain rules

Ralph Z. Hallow, Washington Times, Thursday, November 13, 2008

EXCLUSIVE:

MIAMI – The Republican Party will file federal lawsuits Thursday seeking to overthrow the McCain-Feingold federal campaign finance regulations, Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan revealed Wednesday night at a private dinner with the nation’s Republican governors.

The move is considered a slap in the face of the Republican Party’s failed 2008 presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was dramatically outspent by Democrat Barack Obama, and of President Bush, who signed McCain-Feingold into law in 2002.

“We will bring two federal suits tomorrow to strengthen the Republican Party,” Mr. Duncan told The Washington Times.

Mr. Duncan said one suit will be filed in the District of Columbia to strike down the soft-money ban that is the central tenet of the McCain-Feingold Act — formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. “Soft money” is largely unrestricted contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions.

The second suit will be in a Louisiana federal court to strike down the limits under the law Mr. McCain co-sponsored with Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, that control coordination between parties and their candidates.

“It prohibits us from spending over $84,000 in coordination with a candidate in a congressional race,” Mr. Duncan said. “That means we have to find some group to raise and spend money but without any coordination” with the candidate, his campaign or the RNC.

“That does not allow for a unified message,” he said. “We don’t think there is anything corrupting about coordinating with a candidate.”

McCain-Feingold helped Republicans in 2004, when Mr. Bush, under the increased hard-dollar contribution limits in the bill, set what was then a campaign fundraising record in his successful re-election bid. Hard-money contributions are lower-amount donations — $2,300 per election to individual candidates, with a higher limit for political parties — that can be spent on any election activity. Read the rest…

It’s about time someone challenged the Constitutionality of McCain-Feingold, I for the life of me can’t understand why Republicans supported it in the first place.

Ed has additional details at Hot Air.