Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank said those who try to lay blame for the current mortgage crisis on the push for affordable housing via the Community Reinvestment Act are racist.
Frank told attendees at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston that loans under the act are issued by regulated institutions, while most of the foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities.
"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."
House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called Frank's remarks "a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped our nation avoid this economic crisis."
Source: The Associated Press, Glen Johnson (10/06/08)
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