Conservatives in particular and Republicans in general once again are eating crow and find themselves clueless and ignorant. Ditto for conservative journalists, especially those at Fox News. They all predicted Fannie and Freddie would never repay their debt to Uncle Sam for the loans that kept them afloat and operating. They all said the federal government was not good at doing this and that the money would never be paid back.
The latest reports by the Associated Press in a Time Picayune article dated May 10 reports that Fannie Mae earned $58.7 billion for the January - March quarter and would pay $59.4 billion in dividends to the U.S. Treasury next month. That will bring their total payment to $95 billion so far to Uncle Sam out of the $116 billion loaned to them. Freddie Mac will pay $7 billion in dividends next month to the U.S. Treasury.
I wrote a past commentary here in politidose early on the subject matter and pointed out that contrary to what the conservatives were saying, Uncle Sam did indeed have a record in recapturing the money loaned to failed companies and or foreign countries. The U.S. bailed out Chrysler many years ago and Mexico not too many years ago and was paid back all the money loaned plus interest.
Yes, there is a precedent to judge what works and what does not work. And yes the federal government does perform well when a democrat is in the White House. The problem for conservatives is their ideology has produced failure for just about everything they touch. Understanding the past is still the key to the future. Democrats are more in tuned with the future.
Written by John Lucia
