Barney Frank to address Boston business group

I hope someone at the meeting asks Frank about his role in the subprime mortgage fiasco. I don't think his plan to reduce defense spending by 25% is going to stimulate the economy.

can you believe this buffoon. barney (fife) should be in jail for what he has done to this economy. this dem led congress has a LOWER approval rating than the current admin, yet the people of massachusetts will send this moron back to the senate. how unbelievable can you get. when will everyone wake up and see for themselves that these dolts really dont care what we think. if (fife) really cared for the people he wouldnt seek reelection but i hear he has a new commercial saying how it is all the gop's fault. how noxious can you get.

Is Barney Frank Serious About Cutting Defense Spending By 25%?
How many jobs will be lost nationwide as well as in our own state?
The Effect Here In Massachusetts will devastate not only defense contractors but also area merchants as well. The effect of this crazy scheme in this time of economic crisis will be terrible.
And what effect will that have on our security?
Has This Man Gone Nuts?

"...a crucial role in the government’s response to the financial crisis..."

Hey boston.com/Globe, how about mentioning that Frank also played a significant role in causing the financial crisis? His steadfast defense of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in the face of mounting evidence of insolvency, is shameful. His complete refusal to accept ANY responsibility for the current crisis is loathsome. He is beneath contempt.

How is this clown allowed to speak to anyone is beyond me? I wouldn't allow him to to speak to 7 year olds about finance. This guys fat waste of a human being.

Frank is a complete disgrace, who wants to listen to him try to cover his ass w/ the FNMA/Freddie Mac disaster. He's a fraud and has no credibility at all. They should cancel this meeting with him, maybe that will send him a message that his word means nothing.

The first sentence should have read,"A Massachusetts Congressman who played a crucial role in creating the financial crisis [by continuously refusing calls to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae] is speaking today in Boston. Why this guy is hailed as a "hero" of the bailout is beyond me. It's like a firefighter who sets a building on fire and the only thing the media focuses on is how he's helping to fight the blaze. I agree with John. I hope the audience today lets him know that although he's working to fix the mess, we hope that he at least takes some person responsibility for his role in creating it. Many of us would have more respect for him if he would admit some responsibility instead of blaming everybody else.

Barney Frank should go to prison for his role in producing this economic nightmare. His pressuring companies to lend to lousy borrowers was a major cause of all of this.

Hnmmm. Anti-Frank remark doesn't get posted. Hmmm.

Frank is oblivious to his negative role in this whole thing. His MO has always been to sit back, wait for things to implode, then show up on the scene, make a few bratty, smarmy remarks about how his perceived political opponents caused the problems, then introduce legislation that's one part too little/too late and one part special interest giveaways. Unfortunately he gets away with it time and time again, so expect little to change.

"A Massachusetts congressman who has played a crucial role in the destruction of peoples 401K and created a world wide financial crisis do to his Communistic Social Engineering speaking today in Boston" would be a truthful opening statement by the Boston Globe Pravda.

Hnmmm. Anti-Frank remark doesn't get posted. Hmmm.

I hope there is a Q&A session so he can be challenged on the blatant hypocrisy of his commercial claiming to be a regulatory stalwart. What BS!! If he was a republican the editiorial staff at the Globe would be all over his case about his failure to regulate Fannie/Freddie. What is the credibility rating of the Globe these days? Probably lower than Congress.

Saying Bonnie Fwank played a role in the recent bailout package is akin to Colonel Sanders saying chickens have played an unselfish part in the company's success. His greatest accomplishment while in Washington was having an upscale male prostitution ring running out of his townhome. Of course, as in the fannie Mae debacle, he claimed he knew nothing of it...

I don't think its fair to blame one individual for the mess. Barney like many other democrates made it easier for the less fortunate to get get a chance at the american dream. Unfortunately the greedy financiers, mortgage lender, developers, and realtors who preyed on these people took full advantage of the nieve lower income population. Believe it or not there are many people, especially sub prime borrowers who have very little financial knowledge, and real estate experience to have foreseen the mess they were getting to. Barney unlike the republican idiots in the senate is looking for ways to decrease spending and increase tax revenue in order to get the economy back in gear. Take internet poker for instance, this is a billion dollar industry in which the US gov't is getting zero revenue from. Why because some republican idiot sneaked a provision into the 911 bill to ban poker online. Has the ban stopped US players from wagering online NO!!!! Great job. Thats hundreds of millions of tax dollars we could have used for Bush's sorry war.

Wouldn't helping all homeowners instead of just those facing foreclosure help the economy more? If rates on mortgages drop with Government intervention, everyone can refinance to lower fixed (Only) rates and have more money to spend every month, seems to me this is more sensible than cutting a check for $600 and having people apply it to their credit card balances. It will help the Banks with a refinance boom and it will trickle down to help every business in this Country.

I'm wondering which of our stellar public servants in Congress will be thrown out to work in the dreaded public sector after the next census. MA will positively lose one more seat and I look forward to it! It is so hard to choose which one I would be unable to survive without but I'll just do my best. I'm thinking that I should intentionally avoid the census takers to see if we can get rid of two!

I wonder how many of the people criticizing Frank actually know anything more than what they're being told by the "pundits" (e.g., Bill O'Reilly, WSJ, Fox News). Frank isn't blameless in this thing, but his role in the decline of Fannie and Freddie has been completely overblown by his political opponents. Before spouting off about how responsible Frank is for the housing fiasco, you'd do well to go through the Congressional Record and see what he actually said and tried to do about Fannie and Freddie. Namely, he worked in a bipartisan way to reform the GSEs. The House twice passed reform bills that never made it out of the Senate -- once during the Republican control and once under the Democrats with Frank as chairman.

I'm not huge fan of Barney Frank, nor do I think he or anyone else in Congress is completely blameless in underestimating the trouble that Fannie and Freddie were in. But I'm truly sick and disgusted by this continued bashing of Frank by people who clearly know nothing more than they hear, see or read from the ideologues who love to bend or break the truth to push their agenda.

Barney Frank should be indited as all the individuals involved & assets attached where they made gains including political contributions. This stealing of our economy was done by individuals, not me or my friends.

Barney Frank and organizations like ACORN forced Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Banks to meet a quota of sub-prime mortgages or pay big penalties. So to comply with their quotas they made mortgages affordable by using schemes like:

"100 percent financing . . ."
"No down payment . . ."
"Interest only loans . . ."
"No income . . .
"No job . . ."
"No assets . . ."
"No credit scores . . ."
"Low credit scores . . ."
"No SSN required . . ."
"ITIN identification accepted . . ."
"Undocumented income . . . even if you don't report it on your tax returns . . ."