Sweetheart mortgages given by Countrywide Financial, the nation’s biggest mortgage lender, to elected officials and government bureaucrats seem tailor-made for an ethics inquiry by Congress, especially as the country is seeing a rising tide of voter anger in this presidential election year due to the massive $300 bn bailout of the housing industry at taxpayers’ expense.
The mortgages at issue were allegedly given to Congressional members and staffers championing this record bailout, a bailout that now surpasses the taxpayer cost of the S&L crisis in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) say Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is ignoring their demands for an investigation into cheap, VIP mortgages allegedly given by Countrywide Financial to House staff members and elected officials.
Countrywide allegedly gave cheap, sweetheart mortgages to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking committee who reportedly saved $75,000 on his inside deals from Countrywide.
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Shoulds like republicans looking for anything to deflect from their party’s declining influence in this country.