Ammo against those Repubs claiming the foreclosure mess is the fault of blacks,

[sinkingfeeling]

the poor, or Clinton. Here's 10 points to discredit them.

One of the best articles out there: http://www.truthout.org/100208D

Firing Back on the CRA Libel

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You can hear the conservative commentators burbling this CRA fable from the Wall Street Journal to the National Review; from Rush to YouTube. Neil Cavuto put the essence of the argument right out there on Fox News: "Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster." See! It's all the liberals' fault for insisting on social justice!


4. The bulk of the "junk" loans that have been packaged into mortgage-based securities are CRA loans.

False. An analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data in the country's 15 biggest metropolitan areas found that 84.3 percent of the high-cost loans made in 2006 were originated by non-CRA lenders-including 83 percent of high-cost loans to low- and moderate-income individuals. The Federal Reserve notes that, across the country, non-CRA lenders were twice as likely as CRA lenders to issue subprime loans to vulnerable borrowers. Furthermore, the Fed also reports that responsible mortgages made by CRA lenders have about the same low rate of foreclosure as other traditional mortgages.

9. Well, then...it must be Bill Clinton's fault, right? In 1995, Clinton changed the Community Reinvestment Act to allow the securitization of CRA and subprime mortgages. That's what started all this.

Talking point regurgitation at its worst. The 1995 revisions to the CRA only changed the way in which a bank's CRA compliance is evaluated. They made no mention of mortgage securitization at all. Under the 1995 rules, banks are rewarded only for making mortgages in their communities, not for re-selling mortgages as securities.