March 1, 2011 - 10:13pm
Seeing Red: Bills, bills, bills
BY KYLIE KAGEN
If you’ve ever been caught in a sticky situation with the law, you may have found yourself thinking, “Oh God, I screwed up – how am I going to get out of this one? How am I going to PAY for this one?” And I don’t blame you – this reaction seems perfectly natural. For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage ogres who received love and affection via federal bailout, this isn’t their reactions. “Why?” You may ask? Oh, it’s nothing really… because we’re all paying for it.
According to a recent New York Times article, Fannie and Freddie can thank taxpaying Americans for a whopping 160 million dollars spent towards defending the companies and their employees in fraud suits. The two companies have been battling in court for several years on a variety of cases, but in spite of everything, the government is choosing to direct funding towards their legal bills. When questioned on the topic, the temporary director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Edward J. DeMarco said, “the advancement of such fees is in the best interest of the conservatorship.”
Oh, right, I get it. As long as the money to pay for these schmucks is coming out of the purses of the people, everything is fine. This is all a part of a disturbing trend of government apathy towards the people it is built to serve that I can only hope will come to an end with the rise of a conservative economic plan over the next several years. It is the duty of each American to operate in a financially responsible manner. To stray from this path brings a burden that is each man’s own to bear – not that of his neighbors or statesmen. Why are Fannie and Freddie exceptions?
