On '60 Minutes' | 12/11/2008 6:00 pm

'60 Minutes': Barney Frank, Man of the Hour (Video)

This Sunday on "60 Minutes," Barney Frank — the gay, liberal, incredibly feisty chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the House, who was at the center of both bailouts — joins me. Some of the questions we’ll address: Are we propping up companies or individuals? And is Frank, as some have said, a pragmatic on economic issues but a liberal on social issues? Also, Byron Pitts will profile Pete Carroll, coach of USC’s football team, the Trojans. Watch us on Sunday for more.

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"60 Minutes" airs on CBS Sunday at 7 PM ET/PT.

Read more about: 60 Minutes, Bailout, Barney Frank, CBS, Economy, News, Television, Video

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Rep. Barney Frank is one of the Congressional leaders who is responsible for the failure of the government to review and perhaps rein in the sub-prime mortgage loan practice which led to the failure of our financial markets and to the current recession. He has much to answer for because of his enthusiasm in allowing lower income folks to become homeowners who were basically unaware that their loans were not secure and that they could easily lose their homes and all monies spent on improvements by a change in the prime rate which would boost their mortage payments beyond their ability to pay. Shame on him.

By Bonnie Oliver on 12/11/2008 6:32 pm

here is barney frank’s side of the story. by the way, do you believe everything you read? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barney-frank/wall-street-journal-edito…

By What The Dickens on 12/12/2008 12:27 am

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What the Dickens - Sorry, I do not read or accept information from the left leaning Huffington Post. I have seen the Congressional tape of Barney Frank belittling the Bush representatives who were sent to Capitol Hill during the first year of his administration to present a case before Congress that the sub-prime loan practice was dangerous. Frank leaned far back in his easy chair and said the new administration was making false claims which could cause a downturn in the real estate market which was booming. Why worry about a market that was doing so well and allowed so many new folks into the housing market that were not eligible previously, he added. Frank is one of the main culprits for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disasters. As for the Bush administration, they did not attempt again to bring forward to Congress a request for a review of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac agencies …to the best of my knowledge. They might have but I am not aware of it. After all, if they could not get Frank to agree to a review the first time around, then a review was not going to take place. He should lose his Congressional seat over his actions. In any event, Frank’s actions were SHAMEFUL.

By Bonnie Oliver on 12/12/2008 1:12 am

Bonnie: the link that Mary Lou gave you from the Huffington Post, be it left leaning or just leaning toward the wind, is besides the point. It was a letter from Franks, himself, to the Wall Street Journal.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 12/12/2008 1:05 pm

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Phyllis - Thank you. Be that it may, I am sure Rep. Frank is going to defend himself from the charge that he blocked a review of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan practices that were a lead cause for the real estate market crash. However, the tape of the Congressional hearing wherein he did indeed belittle the President’s representatives who were asking for a review is unmistakable. I don’t claim that he profited personally from his actions, except by receiving some campaign donations, but he was dead wrong about the real estate market. What would have been the outcome if a review of the agencies had gone forward cannot actually be known. But, one can safely say that more alarm bells would have been ringing all over Capitol Hill and within the investment community. Those mortgage banks would not have been able to sell those “bundled” securities that included much of the real estate loans issued at sub-prime rates. Rep. Frank was not looking out for the rest of us when he allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue their dangerous lending practices. And, furthermore, since the heads of those two agencies were Democrats that leads some of us to believe that there was some political reason for his refusal for a review.

By Bonnie Oliver on 12/12/2008 2:55 pm

I hear you. This is such a complicated mess and there are so many people involved having made poor decisions, I just think that poor ole Barney was just a cog in the whole machine that went kaput. I also think that this man is an honest broker and if he erred, he erred on the side of what he thought was the best thing at the time. And at the time there were many minorities that were being refused mortgages because of their race.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 12/12/2008 5:41 pm

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Phyllis I don’t know about an honest broker. I think he was more attuned to thwarting republicans than letting the truth be known. Ignorant? Maybe. Incompetent? I think so. I tend to think it was more willful ignorance than honest broker. Are people trying to make a case for honest broker because his motivations were to help people get into homes? I can’t fault that, but then why wouldn’t he open Fannie and Freddie up to investigation. He was warned three times publicly and refused to do anything about it. He obviously was just taking the CEO’s word for what was going on at Fannie and Freddie, even though Indy Mac had failed and he was being warned that Fannie may have the same problem. That seemed very stupid to me, and he therefore no longer deserves the public’s trust. Honest broker or willfully ignorant broker, thwarting the repubs because he didn’t want them to have more power on the committee? I think it was ego and his inaction that has totally destroyed what he set out to do. He wanted to get people into homes but most of them have lost their homes. He has been there too long, and was played by all the CEO’s of Fannie and Freddie. Did you see any of the congressional questioning on this?

By Frannie Em on 12/12/2008 8:57 pm

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Frannie - I replied to Phyllis before I read your comment. Perhaps Rep. Frank wasn’t trying to be an “honest broker” but only a foil to the new Bush administration, a political calculation. If so, that would make his actions ten times worst than they are at present and, as I said previously, I believe his actions warrant his removal from Congress.

By Bonnie Oliver on 12/12/2008 9:49 pm

Bonnie That is my guess, because why wouldn’t he open Fannie and Freddie to review? I think, like many, he is a creature of the partisanship in Washington. They all do it to each other. There were repubs that were right in there taking money from Fannie and Freddie as well, but they did not have seats on the Finance Committees. Let’s not forget Chris Dodd who got special treatment from Countrywide on no money down and very low interest loans and he didn’t have to qualify. All of those practices have to stop for all members of congress. I hope that sooner or later more journalists will finally take up the “follow the money” theory and get to the bottom of this.

By Frannie Em on 12/13/2008 1:49 am

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Frannie Em: That seemed very stupid to me, and he therefore no longer deserves the public’s trust. Barney Frank is clever, he’s a well seasoned politican who has run, time and again, against no serious opponent. He can take risks, he can be sloppy, and he will get re-elected no matter what. Massachusetts are its little neighbor, Rhode Island, are blue states to the max. The media here is blue. You cannot vote out a lousy rep. once they become incumbents. I hope Barney Frank and Chris Dodd lose their chairmanships, at the very least, but that likelyhood in a Democrat-controlled Congress in next to nil. I sincerely hope the Republicans reorganize and come back strong because we need some new ideas and choices up here in the northeast.

By Marjorie C. on 12/13/2008 11:17 am

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Marjorie I think Pelosi is beginning to do some changing of chairmanships. There are many junior representatives that are tired of the seniority system in congress, because guys like Dodd and Frank, and I am sure there are some stodgy republicans as well, that have more control of the committees, and the juniors are pushing Pelosi to change the heads of the committees. I hope she responds, she did in the case of Henry Waxman, he pushed for it and she let it happen, so we shell see. The whole place needs to be shaken up. The dems have a clear majority, so unless she does some reorganization of the committee heads, not much will change. It will be business as usual.

By Frannie Em on 12/13/2008 10:30 pm

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Phyllis - I think you are correct that Rep. Barney Frank tried to be an honest broker. However, he was meddling in areas that were not of his expertise in order to benefit the lower income folks for whom home ownership was an unlikely possibility. Not everyone in the country is going to be able to afford to buy a house but Rep. Frank seriously believes that everyone should be able to do so and if they cannot then it is the responsibility of the federal government to help them achieve home ownership. Is is a laudable idea? Only to those who believe in income redistribution and not in achievement through one’s own efforts. It is only in fiction that the Robin Hood theory is applauded. In reality, it is building your house with a deck of cards and not steel and lumber. Sure to collapse and bring down neighboring homes as well ….and this is what happened a thousandfold across our nation. Barney Frank thought the ends justified the means…. which is bad policy and, in this case, disastrous.

By Bonnie Oliver on 12/12/2008 9:42 pm

bonnie, if you had read barney’s letter to the wall street journal, you would not be accusing him of trying to get home ownership for everyone. he wants HOUSING—whether rental or ownership—for everybody. it was the executive refusal to regulate that led us in large degree to this current collapse.

By mary lou s on 12/13/2008 1:03 pm

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Mary Lou - I did not read the Huffington Post link because first it is the Huffington Post and secondly because of the rather sarcastic comment regarding my reading habits made by “What the Dickens” (is that you?). Phyllis informed me that the link was an article written by Rep. Frank. However, Frank’s actions speak louder than any kind of appeasement he is attempting to make now that the real estate bubble has burst. He and Senator Dodd are not the only Congressmen who were negligent and allowed the sub-prime lending practices to continue but they actively blocked any review of the practice. They cannot escape from their actions. This wOw article relates only to Barney Frank. However, many mortgage banks and Wall Street firms that fed on the bubble created by easy credit in the real estate market are also at fault and their greed was unending. Barney Frank’s motives may have been political or simply bad judgment; no matter, the result was the same.

By Bonnie Oliver on 12/13/2008 1:31 pm

Bonnie: He should lose his Congressional seat over his actions. If Frank is to lose his Congressional seat, and I agree that he should, he will have to be removed by that legislative body. The fine people of Massachusetts just re-elected him this Novermber by a good 2/3s majority. Corruption and mismanagement reigns in the northeast. Every day I expect the state of RI to declare bankruptcy — they have been the first to reach the 10% unemploment figure. The unions (municipal and teachers) have got them by the throat, yet they continually to vote Democrat… except for the governor. Massachusetts and RI will elect a Republican governor then the Democratic-controlled legislature will give him the rodeo ride of his life. Needless to say, nothing gets done and corruption/mismanagement has a field day. As for Barney Frank, he figured all those poor folks he helped with sub-prime mortages would continue to vote for him, and they did. And don’t let Chris Dodd of Connecticut off the hook. He profited from this mess too, yet he proudly sits in judgement of others at many of these hearings.

By Marjorie C. on 12/13/2008 11:01 am