By JAN WELLS



During the recent presidential debate, the “change and hope” candidate vehemently pronounced that Republicans are responsible for our current economic ills. How fortunate for him that no one insisted he produce evidence to support his one-sided contention.

In point of fact, there’s plenty of blame to be shared by politicians and Wall Street magicians alike.

It’s interesting to note, though, that the root of the subprime lending debacle can be traced back to endeavors of progressive-minded liberals.

Remember Jimmy Carter? Yes, the country’s most memorable farmer-turned-president…more memorable for stirring the “racism” pot than anything presidential.

In the 1970’s, he signed off on the Community Reinvestment Act; a law promoted by liberals, intended to encourage banks to make mortgage loans to low-income minorities. The law grew out of complaints that banks were guilty of discriminatory loan practices (that’s right, discriminatory in that they expected borrowers to have sufficient income to repay the loans.)

Under Clinton’s watch, the CRA, once a relatively obscure law, mutated into a powerful weapon, and landed in the hands of left-wing activist groups. These activists used their newfound hammer to force banks into making loans to individuals who were not credit worthy. How? If a bank was labeled CRA non-compliant, it didn’t qualify for merger approval, a crippling stumbling block during the banking growth spurt of the 1990’s.

The CRA became just another affirmative action tool, utilized to pay out more entitlements to minorities.

Vote-hungry politicians proclaimed that all were entitled to the American dream (whether their income was sufficient or not) and supported easy credit tactics.

The candidate, not beyond a little vote buying as well, doesn’t blame the Democrats at all, only the banks, and the Republicans, who he claims failed to regulate them properly. In truth, it was Clinton’s hatchet staff, including Janet Reno, who forced banks into the subprime game.

Janet, in her best bulldog voice, growled, “No loan is exempt, no bank is immune. For those who thumb their nose at us, I promise vigorous enforcement.”

The candidate said recently, “This all started as a good idea — helping people buy homes who could not afford to… but over time, lenders began pushing low-income buyers into homes they could not possibly afford, abusing the system by lowering their lending standards…”

A naïve statement at best, and at worst, clearly contrived to please low-income voters.

Perhaps he missed the part where the CRA was used as a club to beat banks into submission? That’s doubtful. How could a community organizer not know that community activists were extorting minority mortgage loans from urban banks?

True to human nature, as profits soared, greed escalated, and the practice of issuing troubling adjustable-rate mortgages and interest-only loans followed.

Unscrupulous Fannie Mae executives bought bad paper, cooked books, deferred write-offs, inflated profits, and snared big bonuses.

Not surprisingly, developers were caught up in the avarice, building huge swaths of still empty residential developments. Major cities everywhere are laden with these sad little ghost towns.

With borrowers unable to make good on the jacked-up mortgage payments (no surprise there) and developers over-building, the ensuing bust of the housing bubble resulted in what will forever be known as the “subprime mortgage meltdown.”

Shocking, isn’t it, that anyone would ask us to assign the entire responsibility for the meltdown to Republicans alone?

While there is definitely plenty of blame to go around for the frightening fix we’re in, it’s clear to me, if not to the “change and hope” candidate, that the problem started when politicians insisted on making mortgage loans to people who couldn’t afford them.

And that disastrous notion, I’m convinced, was conceived on the top step of the front porch of the liberal house of bad ideas.