Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has been named "Porker of the Month" by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) because of his criticism of bonuses for AIG employees while Frank himself has supported bailouts for failing banks and lenders.
The CAGW, a non-partisan government watchdog group, noted that Frank has said that AIG's bonuses only "rewarded failure." Yet Frank voted for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, a financial bailout program with no enforceable strings attached, said the CAGW, and he defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while those lending institutions were in financial trouble.
The CAGW noted Frank's defense of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the years, "even when it became clear that executives at the two giant government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) had manipulated earnings statements and gifted themselves with huge bonuses based on the bogus numbers, misled regulators, and steered the companies into such shoddy condition that they posed a systemic risk to the entire financial system," said the CAGW statement.
In September 2003, Frank told The New York Times that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "are not facing any kind of financial crisis." Both Fannie and Freddie are now almost entirely owned by the government, and while Freddie Mac got $13.8 billion in bailout money last year, Fannie Mae is estimated to get $15.2 billion in 2009, according to the CAGW. |