Mortgages for a Brave New World (Sarcasm)

[Stizzealth]

While it's true that the Republicans were not successful in properly regulating Freddie and Fannie when they were in control, the situation was certainly not helped by the group of Democrats that actively lobbied on behold of a thrift industry. It's important to note that it would have taken enormous political will to overturn Clinton's decision, considering the racial tinge to the issue. One of the problems of locking Freddie and Fannie out of the subprime market was that (in 1999) 5% of loans in the regular market were taken out by African-American residents, while 18% of loans in the subprime market were taken out by African-American voters according to that article. The racial issue was further complicated by the fact (in 1999, according to the WSJ article) that African-Americans and Hispanics tend to have a lower credit rating than other segments of the population (presumably than whites and Asian-Americans). This placed an unfortunate racial undertone on any attempts to set a certain credit score as a minimum for borrowing.