Predatory Lending: Why it is President Bush’s Fault. By Geniusofdespair

It seems someone agrees with Gimleteye: The Governor of New York.

Gimleteye always heads for the top of the food chain when reporting. I report from the bottom up. I don’t always agree but I am eager to hear the point of view from the top down.

The opinion article in the Miami Herald today confirms what Gimleteye has been saying all along. If ever there was a must-read, this is it: PREDATORY LENDING: Partners in crime.

Author, New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer (wish he were running for President) said:

"Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers."

Spitzer also said:

"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. Let me explain:"

"The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative against national banks.

The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation in 2005 of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, including national banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation against the national banks." (hit the link to the Herald to read the entire article – you should read it Bushites).